On the other side
by Noxfero
Summary: This story is the sequel of ' A devil in equestria' please read that before reading this one. It's passed a year since Noxfero and Jaco returned to their life in Hell. But what will happen when another Archedvil, hungry for power, find a way to Equestria? And what will happen when Noxfero trys to stop him? Rated T for some violence, language and themes.
1. Back to the dream

I'm back, with the sequel as promised (Yay!). Please, enjoy and review.

Oo-oO

"Nox, wake up idiot, I'm talking to you!"

"Uh..?" grumbled the other devil, raising his face from the table's surface: on the other side of the big black table, his boss was glaring at him, tapping a long, sharp nail on the wood. Noxfero straightened up, sighing.

"Boss, maybe we should call it a night. We're also lacking the other two… it's senseless try to have a total revision of Hell without everyone." Stated a calm, low voice from an enormous devil at Noxfero's side.

"At this rate, we'll never start the real plans for the reconstruction of all Hell…" grumbled their boss, leaning back in his seat.

"I don't even understand why we have to rebuild it all. I mean, you dismantled it all when that Dante guy told all about the structure in his book, and you wanted to restructure all the non-archdevil's levels… I don't get it…" stated another bored devil, twirling a finger in her long, black hair.

"Well, excuse me for not wanting our structure to be common knowledge. But yes, we are without Belzebù and Mammon, and Noxfero is daydreaming as usual… so yes… go home!" grunted the enormous devil, standing up and walking away angrily. The other four devils groaned, before sliding out of their human-hide seats and walking towards the exit.

"Nox… you are spacing out too much lately… is everything ok?" asked the gigantic devil, striding beside Noxfero while walking away from the dark room: he was at least six meters tall, his skin covered in places by a thick black fur, especially over his shoulders and around his waist. His big three-pointed shaped tail dragged along the floor, leaving a scar on the obsidian floor. His big and concerned eyes were focused at the smaller devil, while moving away his long black hair and scratching one of his sharp horns.

"It's all… fine…" sighed the smaller devil. "Just… thinking about that place…"

"The place you told me we can't speak about because if the boss catches us he'll put us in the boiling oil for a week?"

"Yup." Answered Noxfero, sighing. The bigger devil sighed, patting him on the head, before passing him.

"You have to get over it man, it's been almost a year… and besides, you couldn't have done anything…" He said, before disappearing in a burst of sparks. Noxfero sighed. He knew that. But still…

"Noxy!" chirped the voice of the only female Archdevil: she grasped the other devil from behind, rubbing her breasts against his back. "You are in such a bad shape lately… don't you want to pass a little bit of time with your favourite succubus?" she whispered at his ear, tempting as usual. Noxfero groaned, opening his wings and pushing her away, before turning towards her: white perfect skin, gorgeous body, long black hair, long pointy ears and curled black horns. The erotic dream of every mortal. A fitting display for the queen of the succubi and Archdevil of Lust.

"If you have to pass the night with someone, ask the others. I'm not in the mood." He growled, trying to walk away, before being grasped again by the succubus.

"Come on Noxy… you have neglected me so much lately…" she whispered, nudging with her nose the devil's neck. "And between all you are the best one… let's face it, the boss is not that kind of guy, Belzebù it's a fly, Mammon is a barrel of fat, Daelus is too big for even me and Mephisto is really, really violent."

"I'm sorry Lilith, but no." Growled the devil, waving his bat-wing ears in anger. "Ask one of your servants."

"Come on…" purred Lilith, licking Noxfero's cheek while rubbing her body on him. The devil growled and pushed her away, growling and bearing his fangs. Lilith stared at him for a couple of seconds, before hissing and walking past him. "Well, fine. When you'll want to pass some good time, you know where to find me!" she said, turning to him one last time, winking, before disappearing into the darkness.

"Don't hope for it…" grunted Noxfero. It was better if he moved by shadow-stepping, or he would have risked to meet the last one of the…

"I remember when you liked to pass time with good ol' Lilith." Grinned Mephistopheles, passing a muscular arm around the other devil's neck. The devil sighed, trying to not look at the interloper. Mephistopheles's skin was of an intense red, exalting the black hair and demonic goatee on his slim face. His eyes were yellow pits of magma, his curved horns standing out of his forehead and high in the air. "Listen to me Noxy, you need to take some sort of vacation." He stated, tugging on the other devil. "You are just gloomy as Heaven in that castle. You have to do something different. Why you don't go to one of those wonderful countries at war in the mortal world?"

"Maybe…" grunted Noxfero, moving away the other's arm.

"Trust me. Look at me, I'm going to make a little travel in a few hours. I'm not sure about where, since we can't change the coordinates registered in that thing… you know, we recovered some portal remains from the dump like, a year ago, and we managed to fix it. So, just a nice trip. Too bad you can't go anywhere for a thousand years, as punishment for your unauthorized travel…" mocked the devil with a cruel grin. "Enjoy your stay in here." He said, before disappearing in a burst of scarlet flames. Noxfero hissed in anger, before being engulfed in shadows.

That Mephistopheles. Son of a bitch. He didn't know why such a bastard like him was allowed to to stay in charge, even if everyone knew he had been plotting for centuries to take Satan off from his throne and take control of Hell just because he did his job wonderfully, as the wonderfully sadistic bastard he was. Now he had a portal? His servants never studied portals. Just dragged one out of the garbage…

Noxfero's eyes widened.

-oOo-

"Enjoying the gala, Pinkie?" asked the purple unicorn with a smile, joining her pink friend near the punch bowl. Pinkie smiled.

"Indeedy! At least it's not booooooooring as the first first time." She said happily, while gulping a piece of cake. "And for you? You have to stay with your niece Twi! She's not going to be eight months forever!"

"Shining can manage her for a little. I was just checking around. You are… less Pinkie than usual. Is something bothering you?" asked Twilight, looking at the pink mare, who gulped down another slice of cake.

"Nopi dopi! Just fine and dandy, as Applejack might say!" she said, smiling brightly. The other mare just patted her back, and returned to her family. The pink mare smiled for a little longer, before she returned to eating the cake, smile fading. She actually was pretty bored, but she didn't have inspiration for a song or anything. Not tonight at least. She sighed and grabbed a glass of punch, keeping it on her nose while walking towards Fluttershy. The evening was going on uneventful, Rainbow Dash was hanging out with the Wonderbolts somewhere, Applejack was trying to sell her apples, Rarity was hanging out with her friend Fancy Pants and Twilight was with her brother's family. Her only buddy was Fluttershy. Not the most cheerful, but her buddy anyway.

"Hey shy…. Having fun?" she asked, walking towards her yellow pegasus friend.

"Uh… well yes… it's a little sad that the animal of the gardens still don't accept me… I'm not really good in this kind of social situation, you know…"

"Why, of course! That's why we can hang out!" chirped the other mare.

"Yes… I'm sure you'll appreciate some company…" murmured the yellow pegasus, smiling a little. Pinkie didn't say anything, just leaning a little closer to her friend.

And in that moment, from the night sky came a loud noise, similar to cracking ice, as a long, scarlet scar opened the sky in a mismatched shape.

The eyes of all the ponies raised to the sky, surprised and scared. Pinkie's left hoof burned, her tail twitched and her nose itched.

"This is not good…" she muttered, looking at the scarlet fissure.

-oOo-

"This is not good…" muttered the bull-headed demon, checking his papers from behind the messy counter. Noxfero growled, tapping his claws against the cracked bone surface. "We have the deposition act from one year ago, when your servant came here to dump those things, but I don't see any act of destruction…" stated the devil, tugging his nose-ring, grumbling.

"So, why aren't the remains in the dump?" asked angrily the archdevil, slapping his tail on the dirty floor.

"Don't know what to say to you. Maybe some lesser devils stole them to build their houses. Happens pretty often, you know?" stated the devil-bull, yawning. Noxfero growled and walked out of the barracks, jumping into his shadow and beginning to travel through the darkness. He knew that no lesser devil had stolen the pieces. Mephistopheles did it. Of course he didn't knew where he was going, but once in Equestria, he know what the Archdevil of Wrath was going to do.

The devil emerged from the shadows inside his castle's kitchen, where his minion was whistling happily behind a cauldron full of bubbling green blob, while at the black marble table Junior was biting into a human arm, ripping off a chunk of meat. A little bit away from the cauldron, near the obsidian sink, a certain Scarecrow was humming calmly while pouring something in a cup with a '#1 Scientist' signature on it.

"Hello dad. How did the meeting go?" asked the archdevil's son, moving his eyes to his father. He completely ignored the question, darting towards the scarecrow, grabbing it by its shoulders and turning it to face him.

"Pumpkinhead, the portal machine you built a year ago. Was it possible to fix it?" he asked, looking with his narrow irises into the carved eyes of the pumpkin. Jaco raised his eyes from the cauldron.

"Well… yes, I suppose yes… it would have taken a lot of work, but surely it was repairable…" stated the scarecrow, gulping.

"And the coordinates. Is it possible for someone that's not you to put different coordinates?"

"W-welll no…" the scarecrow managed to say while being nearly strangled by the devil's hand. How a stuffed body was going to suffocate was beyond common knowledge. "There would be the necessity to crack my security code, and that's something long. But in all likelihood, starting again the machine, it will set the last coordinates we used…" he said, choking.

"Do you remember those coordinates?"

"Well…yes… but what…?" began the scarecrow, before the devil let it go, walking towards the cauldron and grabbing Jaco with his tail.

"You have twenty minutes to build another portal with the same coordinates!" ordered Noxfero, putting Jaco in one of his pockets. "Find a way to keep it open as long as possible." He growled, before disappearing into the shadows.

-oOo-

"What's happening Noxy?" asked Jaco, worried, poking his head out of the pocket, while the darkness surrounded them.

"Mephisto got the portal working…" stated coldly the devil.

"Oh… this is bad. What are we going to do? Warn the boss?"

"No. Equestria is a dimension out of the jurisdiction both of Satan and The Beared Man in the Sky, he does not have any interest in preserving it."

"Then… are we going to ask for Daelus' help?" inquired the little demon, his tone strangely serious.

"And get him in trouble too if Satan catches us? He doesn't deserve that. We are going to call someone that the boss can't control." Hissed teh devil, as the shadows began to disappear. The environment was different from Hell's; they were on a sunny beach, a clear sea in front of them, while beside them there was an immense, gigantic and perfectly shaped mountain, reaching the clouds. Purgatory. The devil hissed, walking along the warm sand, towards the cave that worked as a passage from Hell to Purgatory. With a little bit of luck, who he was searching for were going to be there.

There was something relaxing about Purgatory. Maybe the fact that there were no screams of pain. Just the sound of the waves and the eternal picking of the penitent souls, all over the mountain. They had to work hard, if they wanted to reach Heaven. The devil had the quick glance of a couple of souls, featureless and similar to smoke, taking new picks from a chest, before he entered into the cave.

In the large cave, only a few souls were present, and all were hurrying towards the exit, to start immediately their work. Noxfero ignored them and walked towards a little set of boulders, where the two creatures he was searching were arguing about something: the first one was a big, hairy black gorilla, with a scarlet tie around his neck, who was obviously trying to do some paperwork that was scattered on the ground in front of him, while a fat man in red-and-white heavy dress was bugging him.

"Leave me alone Kerby, don't you have toys to make?" grunted the monkey, huffing and turning to the other side, while the man laughed and continued to roll around him.

"Come on, it's not Christmas for a whole bunch of months! I don't have to do shit!" he exclaimed, adjusting his large hat on his head.

"You are the worst Santa Claus ever… I wonder why they gave you that place…" growled the monkey, adjusting a pair of tiny glasses on his face and beginning to type on a computer previously covered by his mass.

"For my wonderful smile of course!"

"…and why they permitted you to keep it, since you fired all the male elves and expanded your factory into a bellic development."

"'Cause I got a nose for the business!" mused the man, patting the gorilla's head.

"Still doing nothing, I see. Never any real working, uh?" snickered the devil, walking towards them, while from the pocket his minion waved to the pair. The monkey grunted, while the other man waved enthusiastically.

"Hey Noxy, how's it going? I thought that your boss prohibited you from leaving Hell for a century or so." He exclaimed, smiling. The devil ignored him and walked towards the pair.

"I need your help. I can't ask anybody else in Hell…"

"I assume because if Satan catches you, he'll punish whoever he can, but since we are not under his control…"

"Right!"

"Oh… and I was just hoping that you were inviting us to a D&D session…" muttered the Santa Claus. "Well, if it's going to be fun, I'm in…"

"Me too… what do we have to do?" asked the gorilla, taking off his glasses.

"Beat Mephistopheles up to save a dimension of talking ponies." Stated the devil, as Jaco nodded in agreement. The gorilla and the man looked at each other.

"So… you are proposing us to put our immortal existence at risk… to saving talking horses?"

"Indeed."

"Yup, he's totally saying that!" chirped Jaco. "Are you guys in?" The two looked at each other again, before opening their mouths to tell the couple of devils to disappear.

"Did I mention that I will give you sandwiches, and to you succubi?" stated deviously Noxfero, pointing his tail respectively to the gorilla and to the man.

"Of course we are in!"

"There was ever any doubt?!"

"Good. Go to my place, my scientist is creating a passage. I got to get the last one of you idiots, and then we can go." Grunted the devil, turning and heading out of the cave.

"You always know how to convince them." Stated the little demon from his pocket, smiling. "Do you think Mephisto is already there?" he asked, with a more concerned tone.

"I'm positive. Luckily, it won't take long to convince Mark." Stated the bigger demon, before spreading his wings and darting towards the sky, aiming towards the group of white and calm clouds at the top of the mountain, where a faint golden light was coming from.

-oOo-

"Are those horses…?" asked with a little surprise the scarlet devil, flapping calmly his black wings in the air and looking at the group of elegant dressed ponies in the garden below him. At his side, a skeleton draped in a lab suit tapped his chin, slowly floating on a platform at his master's side.

"Indeed master… quite a peculiar form of life, I must admit…"

"Save your muttering for yourself and tell me what the scanner says." Growled the devil, snapping his fingers. Immediately the skeleton began to tap on a little floating console, that was flapping its own little bat wings.

"Apparently some traces of Gluttony and Pride in the air, but it's mostly clean. A pure world, indeed." He stated, moving his empty gaze toward the devil. Mephistopeles grinned, and snapped again his fingers: at his command, a countless number of humanoid, black-skinned figures began to exit the scar, falling to the ground below with a series of thumps, before standing up and hissing towards the ponies, their hair bursting into flames.

"There is no way I'm not going to use this world." Grinned the archdevil, as one of the creatures breathed a stream of flames towards a group of armored winged ponies. "There is absolutely no way…"

-oOo-

" There is absolutely no way I'll let you in." Stated calmly the saint from behind the cloudy desk that sat in front of the golden gates, which were surrounded by clouds. The devil groaned, slamming his hands on the table and sending up a puff of white clouds.

"Come on Peter, just a quick trip. Look, I'm begging you!" the devil groaned, flapping his ears. The old bearded man sighed, massaging his head.

"We have rules here. And one of the first rules is that devils don't enter in Heaven, if not on declared visit. Is this a declared visit?" he asked kindly. The devil growled and waved his tail. "I supposed so. Now please leave. You are blocking the line." Stated the saint, pointing at the lines of shining souls that were patiently waiting behind the devil that had cut to the front of the line. Noxfero grunted, and walked away fuming, walking along the golden fence that delimited Heaven. When he was far enough from the gate, he tapped silently a claw against the golden frame. Almost immediately, an angel popped out of the clouds.

"Hey Judas!" exclaimed Jaco, waving his arm to the angel, who nodded and leaned towards the fence, adjusting his shades and fedora.

"Hello to both of you. How can I help you today?" he asked in a mellifluous voice that little had in common with the angels. But that was Judas after all.

"Thirty bucks to get us in." Growled Noxfero, passing a little, tingling pouch to the angel, who grabbed it, nodding. He took two bars of the fence and stretched them, permitting to the devil to enter.

"You never saw me." Stated the angel, before submerging again in the sea of clouds. The couple of devils stayed still, looking around in the sea of clouds and light in front of them.

"Now what?" asked Jaco, moving his gaze around.

"Now we wait. It shouldn't take long." Grunted the devil. As soon as he said that, the calm sea of clouds began to tremble, as a winged figure jumped out of the clouds and darted towards him: the devil had just the glimpse of a redhead, before the angel smashed him to the soft ground, hugging him so strongly that his bones were creaking.

"Noxy! I haven't seen you in years! How are you doing, you little devil scoundrel!?" cried the angel, brushing the devil's head: he was a head shorter than him, but much more well built. He had a couple of white dove wings on his back, a short scarlet haircut, and a bright light shimmering around his crotch region, mercifully hiding certain parts of the angel's naked body from the devil's sight. And he was thankful for this every time.

"Just… fine…" hissed the archdevil, freeing himself from the angel's grasp and backing away, the burns on his body healing quickly. Holy touch could be dangerous even to archdevils. "Mark, listen, I need your help."

"For what?" asked doubtfully the angel, glaring at the devil. "I can't help you with any personal war with some other devil. It's a rule, and I also don't want to."

"It's not that. You have to help me defend a dimension of talking colorful ponies from Mephistopheles."

"I was already in when you said 'talking'" said the angel, grinning.

-oOo-

"Now, does the scanner show any surge of power?" asked Mephistopheles, looking bored as towers of black-scarlet smoke rose through the sky, while flames were devouring the castle, the huge garden below the archdevil, and the city on the other side of the castle itself. All below him, his minions were running around, breathing fire and trying to grasp the ponies' manes. He had to give them credit though: they were fast runners. Just a few of them were actually trying to fight back, with little results.

"Well, actually yes. There is a surge of pure energy running towards here. Level similar to an archangel. A similar, smaller power is floating over the city, I assume trying to stop your servants. There is another power, similar to something related to order or harmony… that's kinda strange… it's divided in six pieces. They are somewhere around here, I can't understand if trying to escape or fighting. And there is also…" The skeleton tapped the machine. "That's… unexpected. A source of power similar to the one of the old chaotic gods. It's sealed by something… and motionless in the gardens." The archdevil turned his flaming eyes upwards.

"Chaotic, huh? Send some minions to retrieve it. It may come in handy later. I'll take care of this one." He hissed, as a black pitchfork appeared in his hand while turning towards the white alicorn that jumped through a wall of flame, her horn aimed at the scarlet devil.

-oOo-

"So, let me explain it: I put up a portal machine with a composition of energized bars of mystical mineral, and yada yada yada. The point is: the portal with absorb the powers from the mineral, so, it'll work for a short amount of time." Stated the scarecrow, rubbing his goggles. In front of a circular metallic structure was roaring a scarlet sled, as the Santa Claus pressed eagerly on the accelerator, ready to drive the sled into the azure shimmer. At his side, the gorilla was staring expressionlessly at the scarecrow, a new tie at his neck. Behind them, the devil was beginning to regret his decision, while the angel was patting excitedly on his companions' backs. And Jaco was looking scared in the same pocket as before.

"It'll energize the portal for a maximum of twenty minutes... maybe half an hour, I suppose. So, try to be quick." Stated Pumpkinhead. "And also, as a curious note, the portal will hold for the passage of a maximum of six souls through it… more, it'll break and wear out all the energy. I'll be right here keeping it online." Added the scarecrow, pointing at a console on the other side of the dungeon.

"Well… ok. By the way, is Anguish ready?" asked the devil suddenly, standing up. The scarecrow blinked, taken aback.

"Well yeah… but I didn't have the chance to test it…"

"Well, a test on the field is always good. Give it to me."

"Sure that there is nothing I can do, dad?" asked Junior as he walked towards the sled, ignoring its occupants except for his father, who moved his eyes from the scarecrow to focus on his son.

"Sure you can do something: prepare sandwiches for Gil and call some succubus for Kerby." He said simply, before turning towards Pumpkinhead and grasping the black, enormous chainsaw that the scarecrow was passing to him.

"Enough chit chat, let's go smack some bitches!" roared the Santa Claus, pressing on the accellerator and darting into the shimmer, almost running over Pumpkinhead.

"Or be smacked." Stated the gorilla, before all of them were engulfed in the shimmer, and disappeared from sight.

"I don't know why…" stated a red and black, smiling cheshire cat that materialized in mid-air. "…But I feel this is going to be utterly interesting, from a lot of points of view…" he purred, ignoring the glare from Junior.

Oo-oO

Here we are. Thing are going south a little bit fast. But that happens. In a few days the second chapter. And remember to drop a review, I'd like to know if I'm doing a good job.


	2. Wrath and Envy

Here it is, second cap. hope you enjoy remember to drop a review. I'm not allergic to that, you know?

Oo-oO

The sled rocked, while azure sparks danced around it, as the Santa Claus tried to stop the sled's rolling.

"You can't control this damned thing better?" growled the gorilla, while grasping firmly at his seat.

"Well excuuuuuse me if the sled isn't built for holding more than two people!"

"You are supposed to drag around the presents for all the toy shops around the world!" retorted the gorilla, as a group of sparks passed under the sled, making it tremble a little.

"Well, but it's not built for people!" snarled the Santa Claus. Noxfero sighed, before stopping their fighting.

"It's one of the worst ways to travel. But it'll be come in handy once we are on the other side, since you two can't fly."

"Well, if I barf on you, don't blame me." Grumbled the monkey, as a bright shimmer began to flash in front of them. With a cracking noise, they were for a moment engulfed in the light, while filled with the sensation of being surrounded by jelly, before they suddenly found themselves suspended in the air, the sled rocking wildly while darting away from an azure crack in the sky. The first thing that the devil noted was that the crack wasn't exactly on the castle as he expected. Indeed, it was was quite far from Canterlot, which he immediately spotted on the side of the only mountain in sight. The second thing he noticed were the columns of smoke rising from all over the city.

"Well… fuck." He stated coldly, before slapping the nape of the Santa's neck. "Move this thing. Towards the city." The Santa grumbled, pressing on the accelerator, as the sled began to move, still rocking and threatening to roll at every second.

-oOo-

The princess of the night was flying over the city, trying to help whoever was cornered or menaced by the strange creatures that were attacking the town. Her refined dress was half burned and half shredded and dangling under her, as she pushed away one of the creatures off a pegasus guard, that once freed flew towards a group of civilians. The alicorn turned again, ready to fly to another side of the city, when a group of creatures jumped down a house, landing on top of her.

"BEGONE CREATURE, THOU ART FACING THE PRINCESS OF THE NIGHT!" she bellowed in the Royal Canterlot Voice, sending one of them against a wall, but the other didn't budge from her back, beginning to claw and bite her flesh, laughing and emitting squeaky sounds. She tried to push them away, but they were again over her before she could even spread her wounded wings. she cried out in pain as sharp teeth bit her neck. She got ready to burst another blast of magic energy against the creature, even if that meant to hurt herself; her horn was lighting up, her eyes shut in either pain and concentration, when a loud noise echoed in the alley, above the sound of the flames and the screams of ponies far away. And then, something pulled away one of the creatures from her back. Probably hitting it with an extremely high speed.

"Oh my, I really heard your voice." Cried a happy voice. She opened her eyes, and faced the smiling face of Jaco, who was pinning one of the creatures in the ground with his head, as if he had been shot by something…

"See? I told you he could fit in your bazooka."

"But it wasn't designed to shoot around your minions!"

The sound echoed another couple of times, and the last creatures were pushed away from Luna's body. Jaco smiled and walked away from the creature he had hit, and walked towards the dark alicorn. Luna blinked, staring at the little demon, before moving her eyes towards the sky and watching as a sled fell down, slamming loudly on the stone street.

"Great way to park, idiot."

"Shut up, pumped baboon!"

She blinked, watching the biggest gorilla she had ever seen and a red-dressed humanoid arguing, before noticing Noxfero jumping off the sled and walking towards her, followed by a naked being with something like a little sun under his belly, that didn't permit her to see anything in that region.

"Look at this…" Noxfero's voice catch her attention again: the devil was looking at the wounds on the alicorn's body, his tail moving angrily. "Mark can you do anything about those wounds?" he asked, turning towards the other creature, that nodded and put his hands over the scratches. Luna's first reaction was to back away from that unknown creature.

"They are not going to heal if you move." The creature stated calmly, loweing again his hands. This time Luna didn't move, as a warm light began to shine, and her wounds began to heal. "Remember that I'm just a Cherub, not a Seraph. I can't heal more than minor injuries." Stated the creature, looking at Noxfero.

"Noxfero, what's happening?" asked the mare. If the devil was there again, he should know what was going on.

"No time to explain. You have to evacuate the city." Stated the devil, looking around at the columns of smoke. "Where is your sister?"

"She… she's at the castle, she's trying to stop the one we believe is the leader of these creatures…" said the mare. She tilted her head a little when she saw the devil's expression.

"Evacuate the city. It's useless trying to save it from the flames." He stated, pointing then to the gorilla and the other creature. "Those two will help you take care of this creatures."

"What? You dragged us here, and we have to escort horses?" growled the humanoid. Noxfero bared slightly his fangs, clearly on the edge of his nerves.

"Since you are vulnerable to those flames, yes, it's better if you stay here, where you can avoid the fire. I, Jac and Mark will go at the castle." He growled, spreading his wings and flapping them nervously.

"What's happening? Noxfero why…"

"No time Luna, listen: the hellfire is a kind of flame that burns whatever it takes, and can't be put out. The city is doomed. Only unholy and holy forces can't be ignited by it. In this case, I and this one." Said the devil, pointing at the red-haired creature, that waved. "We'll enter into the castle and bring out Celestia, while these two cover you while evacuating the city. Clear?" The mare nodded, confused but determined, and opened her wings.

"The gala was held this night. The girls are still inside." She stated, a serious expression on her face. Noxfero licked his lips and nodded, before darting in the sky, followed by the other creature.

"Well then Gil, let's see who kills more of these bastards?" grinned the red dressed creature, starting some sort of engine in the sled, which began to rise into the air, rocking a bit. "The guns are in the back."

-oOo-

"Take this, ya vermin!" growled Applejack, kicking in the chest of one of the creatures, that fell to the ground, just to stand up standing up again and resuming to walk towards the group of mares, chuckling evilly.

"What the hay are those things?!" screamed Rainbow Dash, while flapping over the rest of them, ready to push back the next creature that would have dared to make a step towards them.

"Look at what they have done to my wonderful dresses!" Rarity exclaimed angrily, glaring at her once perfect dress, now torn to pieces, revealing her raffled candid fur, which was stained with some blood dripping out from some cuts.

"I don't think we have to worry about the dress now!" stated Twilight, sending a purple bolt against one of the creatures.

"Twi is right. We have to hold them back 'til all the ponies have left the castle! We can't permit anypony to get hurt." Huffed the orange earth pony with a cocky grinn, ready to stomp again against the creature.

"Well, of that I'm sure." Stated Pinkie, throwing a cake into the face of another creature. "It's just us and these meanies around here, as far as I can tell."

"Well, that's a relief. Now, we just have to hold on until the princess come to our rescue!" exclaimed the purple mare with a confident smile. Behind her Fluttershy just whimpered in fear. Suddenly, from the wall of flames that were surrounding them, arrived a roar similar to a bear's. From the wall of flames emerged the enormous body of a creature that none of them had ever seen before: it faintly resembled a minotaur, but was three times taller than a common minotaur. His fur was short and ocher, his face contorted and similar to a skull, flames erupting from his scarlet eyes, a big double edged axe in his grasp.

"Well… buck!" cursed Applejack, stepping back, while Fluttershy whimpered loudly.

"Come on girls, we can do this!" exclaimed a lot less convinced Twilight. The black creatures chuckled, and began to walk slowly towards the mares, while the enormous creature began to move towards them too.

"Well, I suppose that it's my obligation to tell that is a pleasure to be with you in this moment." Stated calmly Rarity, straightning her posture, even if she was shaking. Applejack just stood beside her, nodding, as Rainbow Dash descended to the ground, nearing her friends. The creature roared again, and the humanoids hissed, displaying their fangs.

There was a hiss and a gushing sound, as a series of tentacles emerged from the creatures's shadows, and began to stab into them mercilessy and suddenly. Most of tme didn't even notice the sharp points of the dark strings tear through their bodies, sending out streams of flaming blood on the burned grass. The creatures rolled on the ground, some of them motionless, other still giggling and chuckling, trying to cover the enormous holes in their bodies, from where the blood was coming out. The enormous creature seemed unimpressed, and instead darted towards the mares, raising its axe-

And while he was roaring at the darkened sky, a blade shot out from his chest: at least, for the mares was just a blade with some sort of little blades on its body. But a mortal could have easily recognised it as a chainsaw with some curved, evil-looking blades on the chain.

The enormous creature emitted a loud moan of pain, as the blade began to move upwards, releasing a flood of dark blood on the grass, as the ponies watched, terrified, as the creature was sawed in half. With a horrible sound the saw cut up through the throat of the creature, and finally cut the head in halfflooding the ground with blood, brain and other disgusting demonic bodily fluids. The enormous body wobbled a little before falling backwards and spilling out over the ground all his organs, which began to melt the grass. Noxfero lowered a little his chainsaw, lapping a little bit of the creature's blood from his face, his wings spread and tense, covered in blood like the bottom half of his raincoat, looking with his narrowed eyes at the ponies, while behind him other tentacles were impaling another group of creatures.

The mares looked at him for a couple of seconds, blinking, before beginning to scream like crazy.

Celestia raised her ears, hearing the high pitched screams of fear from her student and her friends coming from the other side of a wall of flames. She moved her head, trying to locate the source of the sound, failing to dodge the pitchfork that stabbed into her forelegs, opening more bloody wounds in her candid body.

"My, you are such a distractedt creature." snickered the scarlet demon, rotating the pitchfork in his hand. "But you are such a powerful source of energy… yes, I definitely need you." He stated, smiling coldly. The alicorn glared at him, sending a golden beam of magic towards him. The devil just dodged, chuckling.

"Boss, we got the chaotic energy source. It's some kind of twisted statue of some sort, we are taking it back to the portal. And as a notice, it won't stay open for much longer. I suggest you stop playing and catch the other source." Stated the skeleton's voice in the archdevil's head. Mephistopheles grinned and pointed his hand towards the alicorn, releasing a stream of flames. Celestia emitted a scream of pain, falling to the ground. Mephistopheles chuckled to himself, landing on the charred ground and walking calmly towards the alicorn, reaching a hand down to pick her up.

-oOo-

"Girls, stop flipping out, it's me!" shouted Noxfero, while trying to calm the five still screaming mares (Fluttershy had fainted). It didn't help that at the same time he was beheading other black creatures, which were continuing to emerge from the flames.

"Jaco, help me with them!" he cried, moving his eyes towards his minion, who was currently being chewed by one of the creatures. The archdevil's minion nodded, slipped out of the other creature's mouth, pausing to poke it in the eye with his thin hand before running towards the mares, jumping over Rarity's face and slapping her.

"Come on now, snap out of it!" he screamed, looking with his big round eyes in the unicorn's face. Her sight focused on the little demon, as well as the others, as if hypnotized by the tiny handthat had slapped the mare's face.

"Jaco…? What are you… I mean… why… what the hay are you doing, Noxfero?!" managed to screech Twilight, as the devil cut in half another one of the black creatures.

"As far as I can see, I'm saving your goddamned furry asses!" he growled back, before turning towards the incoming horde. "If you know what's good for your souls, you worthless minions, you'll fall back this instant, if you don't desire to be erased from all planes of existence!" he roared, making the chainsaw screech. The creatures stopped and looked at each other for a couple of seconds, before running away, hissing and screaming.

"Stupid worthless minions. Luckily, I don't have servants like those…" he hissed, turning towards the mares and lowering the chainsaw.

"Yeah, you have me!" exclaimed Jaco, smiling brightly.

"… Unluckily, I don't have servants like those…" the devil corrected himself, triggering a fit of nervous and almost hysterical giggles from the ponies. The devil grinned, before walking towards them, wiping away some blood from his face. "Now, are you all still in one piece…?" he asked, leaning towards Rarity and looking at her wounds.

"Yeah partner, more or less…" said the orange mare, grinning. "Thanks for the help, by the way." She added, smiling sweetly. Quite a difficult thing to do, considering the large number of corpses behind the archdevil.

"Noxfero, what are you doing here? What's happe-" began Twilight, before being cut of by a pink blur that passed her and charged Noxfero, smashing him to the ground.

"Noxy! You are back and you didn't tell us? How I was supposed to prepare a welcome back party?!" asked Pinkie Pie from atop the demon's chest, smiling brightly.

"Yes… I'm happy to see you too Pinkie…" muttered the devil, pushing the mare gently off so he could stand up again. "To answer you Twi, it's hard to explain. But don't worry, I'm here to fix it."

"And kick some ass." added Jaco, smirking.

"And kick some ass, yes."

"I think that might be a little problematic now…" stated the angel's voice apologetically in the devil's brain. "I saw them dragging some sort of statue into the portal, and even Mephisto was dragging an unconscious big white horned and winged pony toward the portal. I assume it's going to close itself."

"Did you stop him?" hissed the devil, moving his narrow pupils towards the scarlet scar in the sky, half covered by the streams of smoke.

"Well, I tried of course. But you continue to forget I'm just a cherub, not a seraph. Actually, I'm pinned to a wall by Mephisto's pitchfork, and the pain is quite unbearable."

The devil roared, startling the mares, opening his wings while starting again his chainsaw, before flapping his wings and flying off, passing through a wall of flames. Just one wall, and he was where he wanted: behind the scarlet back of the other archdevil, who was still occupied with keeping Mark pinned to a wall of the castle. Noxfero roared, raising his chainsaw, as the other devil turned, raising his hand to send a stream of scarlet flames pouring out towards Noxfero.

-oOo-

"Jaco what's happening…?" asked Twilight worriedly, as the archdevil disappeared in the sea of flames in front of them. The little demon tapped his chin, while a few feet behind him Rainbow Dash was waking up Fluttershy.

"Well… Long story short, a bad guy is trying to mess up with this place, we assume. And Nox's here to save you all, because he cares about about you. Despite what he said when we left."

"Oh well, that was kinda obvious." Noted Twilight.

"Yeah, he's such a bad liar sometime." Agreed Jaco. "We brought some friends with us. A couple of them are helping Luna to evacuate the city, while the other one is here somewhere."

"Speaking of us, those sissy ponies are scared as hell of us, too. Isn't it clear we're the good guys?" asked the Santa Claus' voice inside the little devil's head.

"Quite hard to tell, with you running around with a rocket launcher shouting 'Ho Ho Ho motherfuckers!?" replied the gorilla's voice. "Anyway, our portal's time is running out. We are returning back in two minutes. You do whatever you want."

"I surely couldn't expect nothing more from two souls of Purgatory!" hissed Noxfero's voice, disturbed, as if he was thinking about something else. Like staying alive. "Do as you wish."

"Jaco, are you ok? You are spacing out." stated Rarity worriedly, tapping a little the demon. Fluttershy raised her head, confused.

"Jaco…? Here? I wasn't dreaming then…? Before, I mean…"

"Hi Shy. I was listening to my friend's thoughts. One of our friends is a sort of transmitter of thoughts, he uses that to determine who is good and who's bad, and we use him like a central line." Stated Jaco happily. A roar of pain come from the flames, followed by the sound of something falling down.

"We have to go help Noxy! I hate to stay away from the action like this, especially if a friend is in danger!" grunted Rainbow, trying to find a passage through the flames. "Twilight, can't you put this out?"

"No she can't." grunted Jaco. "It's impossible to put out. And we can't cross it, either. Only demons and angels can do that. We have to find a way around."

"Wait a moment, partner, aren't ya supposed to be a demon?" asked Applejack, beginning to trot behind the little devil.

"It's hard to explain."

-oOo-

"Now Nox, I admire the effort, but in the end, garbage is still garbage, huh?" stated smirking Mephistopheles, flapping his wings and pressing a hand against a large slash across his chest. On the ground, Noxfero and Mark were panting, the first one with a series of scratches over his wings, the second with three stab wounds in his chest.

"Yeah, indeed, you haven't changed a bit." Hissed the devil, taunting Mephistopheles, who only smiled in return.

"I actually was expecting you to show up and try to steal all the wonderful source of powers I manage to find here. Though, I actually wasn't expecting you to convince an angel! I mean, did you drug him? Did you take control of his mind?" he asked, still with his smile on.

"Who knows…" hissed the other devil, spreading again his wings, ignoring the pain. In a remote corner of his mind, he heard two of his companions' voices tell him that they were going back into the portal.

"It's kinda strange. I know you two were… friends… in life, but that doesn't authorize an angel to help a demon."

"What do you know about us, Mephisto?" asked Mark, while a faint light began to materialize in his hands. The archdevil chuckled.

"Enough. Now Noxy, I'd like to give you the chance to flee. I'll steal your power another day. For today, I have two sources of energy to study." stated Mephistopheles, pointing at the unconscious body of Celestia, which was engulfed in a bubble of solid fire and floating in the air beside him. He then pointed his pitchfork at the pair, smirking. "Maybe I can leave you a nice scar…"

"Hey you! Big meanie! Stay away from Noxy!" cried Pinkie Pie, darting in from a corner and placing herself in front of the demon, quickly followed by her friends.

"That's right, ya big red-skin, if yer going to touch him, ya'll have to deal with us first!" growled Applejack, stomping a hoof on the ground.

"Yeah, we are going to kick your flank so hard we'll make you blue!" added Rainbow Dash.

The archdevil looked at them, blinking, as well as Noxfero. Then he began to move his eyes between the ponies and the other devil, while his brain began to put two and two together.

"You…they…you…" he began, before bursting into a shower of laughter, rolling in mid air. "Oh… oh man. You are so.. PATHETIC! A shame as a human and now a shame as an archdevil!" he stated, laughing.

"Yeah yeah… at least I know who my parents are…" grunted the other devil. Mephistopheles stopped laughing, raising a finger in a gesture that the ponies didn't recognize.

"Fuck off Nox."

"Master, you'd better move, the portal will close in a couple of minutes!" cried the skeleton's voice from the sky, as the bony man entered the scarlet shimmer. Mephistopheles grinned, before flapping his wings and darting towards the scar in the sky, followed by the bubble of fire that was holding the princess of the sun. Noxfero tried to jump into the sky, only to fall to the ground, yelping in pain, as streams of black blood poured out from his wings. The scarlet archdevil stopped a few inches from the portal, roaring in the air.

"Minions! You'll die in a couple of days. The only way to survive a little longer is to drain the archdevil's energy!" he shouted, before smiling, and disappearing in the red shimmer, witch emitted a pulse of flames before disappearing.

"Oh look, our portal is moving here, where it was supposed to open!" stated Jaco, looking at the sky, as the azure scar crawled through the sky, setting above the castle.

"Fascinating." Grunted Noxfero, turning and stabbing a couple of claws into the eyes of a black creature that jumped out from the flames. "He's trying to block me here again. He knows our portal will close shortly. Mark, you go back."

"Wait Nox, I can help you he-"

"Move!" roared the devil, ripping off another creature's head. The angel gulped, bowed his head slightly towards the mares, then spread his wings and darted into the sky. "And tell to the other two, leavemy castle, before my boss catches your presence. Tell them I'll find a way to let them have their payment!" added the devil. The angel waved his hand, gesturing that he had heard, before entering the blue scar.

"Nox, where did that creature take the princess? " cried the purple unicornlooking fearfully at the sky. The devil threw another creature against the castle, before turning to face the mares.

"To his place, probably to drain her powers and corrupt her soul. Do you remember when I told you that devils are evil?"

"While trying to be evil, ending up just being a grumpy?" asked Rainbow, smirking. The devil huffed.

"Well, yes. But he IS actually evil. Even for me. I think it's safe to say he's the most evil, between all of us." he muttered, stabbing another black creature with his tail. "I promise I'll try to fix it."

"You'll try?! We need you to do it! We can't lose the princess!" Cried the purple mare, her eyes widening.

"I'm sorry Twi, but there is nothing you can do!" growled the devil.

"Nox, the portal!" cried Jaco, pointing at the sky, where the azure scar was beginning to twitch and to tremble, ready to close. The bigger devil growled, grabbing Jaco and pushing him in one pocket, before jumping into the sky, the gashes on his wings healed. He flapped his wings a couple of times, before being pulled down: a group of black creatures were dangling from his tail, trying to reach him, dragging him to the ground. Noxfero roared, landing again and and cutting swiftly with his chainsaw through the group, chopping off heads and arms, before focusing his gaze again on the sky.

He flapped his wings once more, but again, something tugged his tail. "I don't have time now! I'll kill them later!" thought the devil, still focused on the azure fissure in the sky, which was beginning to disappear. He flapped his wings, darting into the sky and dragging with him whoever was attached to his tail. He flapped his wings frantically, narrowing his eyes, trying not to be distracted by the smoke and the flames. With a final, victorious scream, the devil entered the shimmer, engulfed again in the light.

Sparks, lightning and flashes of light danced in front of his eyes, before being suddenly substituited by the darkness of his castle's dungeon. He fell to the ground, flapping his wings on histinct, while behind him came the sound of screaming machines, fizzling cables and creaking metal.

"What the heck boss! I told you that it couldn't take the passage of more than six souls!" screamed Pumpkinhead, darting out from behind his console. "Now the portal is gone!" The devil didn't answer, turning and raising his chainsaw, ready to chop some more of Mephistophele's minions… and he was greeted by the sight of six certain mares, all of them attached to his tail.

The chainsaw switched off on his own, as the devil's ears dropped and his eyes widened, trying to understand what he was seeing.

"Woohoo! Can we do it again?!" exclaimed Pinkie, raising her hooves in the air.

"Dear heaven, a talking horse!" screamed Pumpkinhead, pointing at the pink mare.

"Holy Celestia, a talking scarecrow!" screamed Applejack, as her eyes stared at the scientist near Noxfero.

"Well, what's so strange about a talking scarecrow?" asked Pumpkinhead indignantly immediately, crossing his arms.

"Oh, look at that, they came with us!" exclaimed Jaco happily.

"Who had this idea…" murmured Noxfero, in a dangerously tense tone.

"Why, me of course. Now, we, including myself, will be able to DO something for the princess." Stated Twilight, failing to notice the devil's glare as he stood up.

"Like what? Die?" he hissed, furious. "Of course it was an idea of yours, Sparkle! The leader of the group, always dragging all of the others in her crazy and dangerous plans! But this time you crossed the line! This is not Equestria! Here there are no lollipops and rainbows! Here you can die!" he screamed, grabbing the mare with a tentacle of darckness and pressing his face on her muzzle, as his voice echoed in the dungeon. "Pumpkinhead, activate the portal, send them back!" ordered the devil, without moving his eyes from the scared face of the unicorn.

"Well… I can't. All these overcharged the mineral, which just consumed itself. I can't fix the portal."

"Well, build a new one then!"

"Well… I can do that… but… well… I need more of that mineral… and well… it's pretty rare… the one that was in the portal, that was the first I managed to purchase in over five years…" said the scared scarecrow, ready to run away in case his boss flipped out.

"Well, isn't this just marvelous?" asked venomously the devil to the mare. "You are fucking stuck here! Risking your fucking life! What the hell do I have to do with you Twilight? Tell me! What the fuck would I do if something happens to you?!" he roared, pushing back the unicorn's mane.

"Come on you silly, nothing will happen to us. You'll protect us!" chirped happily Pinkie, smiling. The devi blinked, looking at her, then sighed, dropping the mare gently on the ground.

"Pinkie is right… if I'm correct, this is the place you know the best. I'm sure you can give us some good advice on how to survive out there." Stated Rarity, smiling.

"Out there? You are not moving a hoof from here!" exclaimed the devil. "You are not leaving this place, and if you do, I'll be with you. That's the first rule. Objection, ladies?" asked the devil, glaring at the group.

"You can't do that!" exclaimed Twilight, again on her hooves. "We are here to rescue the princess!"

"Of course I can. My home, my rules."

"Hah, you can't hide the rainbow!" boasted Rainbow Dash, flapping her wings and trying to dart towards the stairs, efore stumbling to the ground.

"Rainbow! Oh my… I knew this wasn't a good idea…" murmured Fluttershy, walking to her friend, who smirked.

"Don't worry I'm just a bit beaten up."

The devil growled.

-oOo-

"This is your room." Groaned the devil, opening a heavy red door, revealing an extremely dusty room with a series of enormous spider webs on the ceiling.

"But Noxfero, this is dreadful! It'll be an enormous damage for my mane! Don't you have a more… suitable room for guests?" asked Rarity in a slightly-disgusted tone, looking over the room. They had been extremely quiet during the walk between the guest's room and the dungeon. Noxfero had avoided all the passages near windows on the outside or other more… gruesome parts of the castle, leaving them to think about the decision they made. But evidently, that was enough to break the mare's silence.

"No Rare, sorry. I don't usually have guests." Hissed the devil. "Just one bed, I'm afraid, but I'm sure it's big enough. Tomorrow, don't leave the room until I'm not here to pick you up."

"Uh? And where are you going?" asked Pinkie curiously, while looking under the bed, being greeted by the sight of a spider big as a cat crawling away, an eyeball in its mandibles.

"To my room… well girls… goodnight, and welcome to hell!" grunted the devil rushly, before slamming the door. The mares looked at each other, before slowly crawling under the dusty sheets.

"Maybe this time… we've bitten off more than we can chew…" murmured Fluttershy as soon as Rarity put out the black candle near the bed.

"I… I don't know… I just wanted to help the Princess…" murmured Twilight, as her voice broke a little.

"Oh, I know sugarcube." Said softly the orange mare, hugging her friend. "It's normal. I want to help the princess too."

"I think it's better if we analyze the situation after we are all rested." Stated Rarity from the darkness.

"Yeah. Let's just sleep a little. At least, here it's safe." Said Rainbow, yawning loudly.

On the other side of the room, a closet opened slightly with a high screech, as something similar to black hair crawled out, followed by a crazy multicolored and luminescent eye, staring at the bed. The mares blinked.

-oOo-

Noxfero tossed himself on the bed, after putting his raincoat in its place. His body was screaming in pain and fatigue, while stings of pains crawled all inside his wings. He grunted, rolling on the bed and looking at the ceiling. Maybe all of this was just a werid dream, and he still had to wake up, and prepare himself to go to the meeting.

"It would have been better to have never met them, if that would mean they could be safe now…" he murmured, flapping his ears."Man… what they will even going to believe about me now? What Pinkie will going to believe? I wonder if they're starting to think I'm some monster living in his evil lair here... I mean, I am, I really am, they should, they... should."

And then he heard a faint murmur outside his room, before someone knocked at his door.

"Jac, I'm not letting you sleep here, go away!" he growled.

"Nox?" asked a voice on the other side. The devil blinked, before standing up and moving towards the door, opening it: in front of him, Pinkie was smiling sheepishly, a pillow in her mouth. "Err… can we sleep with you? Please?" she asked, gesturing to the other five mares hiding behind her. The devil blinked, before sighing and letting the mares inside.

"I'm here just so I'm not left out, I'm not scared or anything!" exclaimed Rainbow, while darting beside him and putting herself beneath the sheets of the enormous black bed. The devil grinned.

"Of course…" he hissed, laying between the mares and opening his wings, creating a protective shield around them. "Try to sleep now, ok?" he asked gently. Pinkie nodded and hugged him, using his chest as a pillow, as well as Fluttershy. Rarity murmured a 'goodnight' before falling rather unladylike over the pillow, snoring loudly. Twilight said nothing, trying not to look in the devil's eyes, but relaxing when his tail tucked the sheets around her.

Noxfero sighed, and closed his eyes, as a group of shadowy hands put out the lamp's candles, and the last two mares began to snore loudly.

"Goodnight girls." he murmured, as his mind slip away, lulled by the mares' breaths.


	3. Hell's welcoming

Noxfero snuggled his nose into his soft pillow, before lazily opening his eyes: he had ended up with his face in Rarity's belly, as the unicorn was grumbling something in her sleep, brushing her cheek on the devil's hair. He yawned and pulled away from the candid mare, who murmured something before rolling to the other side. The devil stretched his arms, yawning again, and looking tiredly at the faint scarlet light filtering in through the window. He turned his head: his bed was empty, except for him, Rarity, and a curled up Fluttershy.

The devil blinked, before jumping on his feet, moving his eyes around and sniffing the air, accidentally pushing over the white unicorn.

"Hey what's happening?" she managed to say, standing up, while Fluttershy was pushed out of the bed too, with an 'eep' of surprise.

"Where are the others?!" asked the archdevil to no one in particular, as he sniffed the air. He could smell them, but it was mostly covered by the stench of the castle.

"I… uh… they woke me up earlier… they were hungry… They decided to go to the kitchen." Muttered Fluttershy, looking at the devil. "Is that… uh… a problem…? "

"Of course it is! What part of 'it's dangerous here' didn't you catch?" hissed the devil. "Well, at least I know where their noses brought them." He ran to the door, while a couple of shadowy hands grabbed the two mares and began to follow the devil.

"They could really be in danger?" asked Fluttershy, scared. The devil didn't answer, almost tripping down the stairs, and slamming a door open.

The kitchen was much more chaotic than usual: Pinkie Pie was running all over the large room, trying to catch a pack of gingerbread men that were running around, likely escaped from the half smashed bow that was laying on the floor. At the table, Applejack and Twilight were at both sides of a really pissed Pumpkinhead, the first mare tapping his stuffed body cautionusly, the second one examining closely every action the scarecrow performed. He gulped angrily his cup full of sawdust, moving his carved eyes toward the devil that was glaring into the room.

"Master, I can understand these creatures are guests… but they are pretty rude." He stated, pushing away the orange hoof that was pressing on his chest. The devil sighed, relaxing and entering the kitchen, followed by the last two mares.

"Morning Noxy!" called Jaco from behind his cauldron, where a grey slime was bubbling. "You are up early."

"Mh… that's true. Usually we never meet at breakfast." Nodded the scarecrow, walking towards the devil. "And those ponies are earlier risers than me."

"Well duh, I'm a baker!" stated Pinkie, stopping in the middle of the kitchen. "I woke up, waited a couple of minutes to not disturb anypony. But then my tummy began grumbling and I was all like 'stop tummy, we can't wake up all the others' and it was like 'but Pinkie, I'm hungry!', so we passed some time arguing. Then Applejack woke up, and she was hungry too, so I proposed that maybe we could go to search for the kitchen, and she was all like…"

"I got the picture, thanks Pinkie." Stated the devil, trying to hold back a little smile. The mare smiled and hopped towards the table, her gingerbread prey in her mouth. "Jac, Jac, make something edible for the girls. If we have something."

"Yup, I was trying, but I don't think they can eat living slime." Answered the little demon, watching as the substance in his cauldron raised some jelly tentacles out. "I'll see if we have some veggies somewhere."

"I assume those… creatures… will be our guests for some time?" asked the scarecrow, looking at his master.

"Until you fix the portal machine in some way."

"What? We are not leaving until we find the princess!" exclaimed Twilight. The devil glared at her.

"It will surely take some time. And I'm not sure it'll work." stated coldly Pumpkinhead. "I'll try to do something then. If it's urgent as I suppose it is…" he added, before turning, pushing away the orange earth pony that was pressing on his leg, and walking out of the room.

"Hey, what's his problem?" asked the cyan pegasus, flying over the table. "He looked at us like if we were some kind of circus freaks, even if he is the talking scarecrow."

"You looked at me in the same manner, when we first met." Said the devil, grinning. "And even for Hell, talking horses are a peculiar thing. And he's also a scientist, so it's normal that he looks at you as some sort of scientific subject."

"Like when you followed me all around Ponyville dressed in bushes, trying to find out about my Pinkie Sense!" exclaimed the pink mare, pointing a hoof towards Twilight.

"Well, it's mighty peculiar anyway, a talking scarecrow. Now, what kinda of magic can do something like that?" asked Applejack curiously, sitting with difficulty on one chair, as Jaco served a big, purple apple in front of her.

"No magic. He's actually a ghost." Explained the devil, impaling one of the gingerbread men with the point of his tail and raising it in front of his mouth, a dense stream of scarlet syrup pouring out of the biscuit's wound. "He's just possessing the scarecrow."

"A…a ghost?" cried Fluttershy softly, lowering her head.

"Kinda. Not the type going around moving chains anyway, so you don't have to worry too much about him. Just don't tempt him to dissect any of you…"

"WHAT?"

"Just joking, just joking…" grinned the devil, biting off the gingerbread man's head.

"Well… anything else we have to know?" asked Rarity, while picking up with her magic grasp a slice of a strangely green cake, sniffing it cautiously. The devil opened his mouth, but before he could say anything, the kitchen door opened, and a gray-heared man entered the room, scratching his naked chest, yawning.

"Morning boss, strange to see you here so early…" he began, before his brown eyes focused on the six little horses that were sitting around the table. His face opened in an enormous smile, full of sharpened teeth. "Oh man, and it's not even my birthday! Look at those!" he cried out, running towards the table, and pinching with a couple of fingers Rarity's flank. "Look at this, just fat enough to be a challenge!"

"Excuse me! Fat? I'm not fat! It's just healty mass!" boasted the unicorn mareglaring indignantly at the man, who stepped away, startled, before smiling again.

"And you also found a way to put human souls in them, to give the impression of a real chase! Thank you master!"

"Don't make me slap you with a rolled up newspaper Esper, these are not food, they are guests." Grunted the devil, glaring at the man, as his smile disappeared.

"Guest? You sure?" he whined, licking his lips and looking in quite a famished way at the mares.

"Yup. I'll explain the situation later, when Sasha and Zira are back too. Girls, this is Esper. He's in charge of the castle's prisons." Stated the devil, pointing at the man. Esper grunted, walking towards the fridge. "He's a werewolf." Added the devil, as the man took out an half frozen human arm, sitting on the table beside Applejack and beginning to bite the cold flesh.

"What? A werewolf? What is that?" asked Twilight, while backing away, her eyes focused on the man ripping off chunks of flesh with his teeth.

"It means that you don't want to stay near me when the moon his full." Esper grinned, gulping down the meat.

"I think I have to puke…" muttered the purple mare, pressing her hoof against her mouth, sliding off the chair and running towards the door before Noxfero could stop her. She opened it with her magic, and slammed into a little creature with a little black raincoat, black hair, a frown on his face and no nose at all.

"Watch out where you are going!" hissed the little devil, pushing back the mare, before noticing that he had actually hit a purple unicorn. His eyes widened, as his angry frown changed to a surprised frown. "And what the heck are you supposed to be?" he asked to the mare, ignoring the sick expression on her face. The mare repressed a barf, breathing heavily.

"He's… eating… he's eating…" she groaned, pressing a hoof to her mouth again and darting outside. The little devil watched as her silhouette disappeared down the dim corridor, before walking calmly inside.

"What's that, a new invention from Pumpkinhead?" he asked coldly, sitting in the now empty seat. Noxfero didn't answer him, jumping to his feet.

"Jac, keep an eye on the girls!" he hissed, before darting out of the kitchen. Junior glared at him for a second, before darting out a forked tongue and grasping half-chewed arm, pulling it into his mouth.

"I was eating that…" grumbled Esper, watching as the little devil gulped down the arm without even chewing, while the were watching in terror as the lifeless arm disappeared into the tiny body.

"Anyway…" hissed Junior, spitting a finger onto the table. "What are these things? Dad's new toys?" asked the little devil, pointing at Applejack, the nearest mare.

"Why you don't have a nose?" asked Pinkie.

-oOo-

Twilight ran down the corridor, her eyes locked on the soft purple carpet under her hooves: she could still see in her mind the image of the sharp teeth ravaging the dead meat, smell the foul breath. The mare leaned against the black wall and stopped, breathing heavily. Then she simply threw up, staining the carpet with the few bites of fruit she had taken in the kitchen.

She felt like shit, quite honestly. She sat down, breathing heavily, her eyes beginning to tear up. She had spent all night thinking about Noxfero's words, and now, after seeing a sentient being tearing apart a chunk of meat that had been a part of another sentient being had just crumbled the few excuses she had created to reassure herself.

The mare began to sob, trying to stand up without stepping in the little pool of vomit she created. She sniffed and turned, just to see a long, dark corridor she had run. She had no idea of how to get back to the kitchen.

"Ok… ok… calm down Twilight. Surely, if it's so dangerous, Nox will come to find you." She murmured, trying to reassure herself, while pressing against the wooden surface behind her. "Or maybe he's not coming. That's the perfect way to get rid of the worst plan-maker …" she thought suddenly. She had dragged all her friends into a potentially-lethal area, and Noxfero had been angry about that. Maybe he leave her alone, as a punishment. The mare pressed even more against the surface, that moved, revealing to be a door, as she stumbled and fell into an enormous, low-lit room.

Twilight rolled onto her belly, standing up and looking around: wherever she moved her eyes, she could only see enormous bookshelves with tons and tons of books. Her mouth opened, as she realized she was looking at an enormous library. She walked a little further towards a bookshelf, looking around with amazement, her fears forgotten.

She lit up her horn, since the room was extremely dark, lightened only by few red candles, that were scattered all over the place. Following the luminescent bulb of light that she had summoned, she slowly passed beside a series of black books, walking towards the center of the room. Where, placed on a soft scarlet carpet with a rose decoration, was laying a glossy and well cared for coffin, opened to reveal the purple inside.

"Now… what the hay is a coffin doing in a library?" she asked to herself, before lowering over it, noticing the series of books scattered inside, failing to notice the pair of scarlet eyes that glared at her from above a shelf, as a shining smile opened in the darkness, revealing a series of shimmering teeth that had the addition of two enormous canines, similar to fangs.

-oOo-

"You don't seem to be really surprised by 'talking horses.' I assumed they were a strange sight for this world." Stated Rarity, while looking with curiosity at the little noseless creature. He looked at her with his frowning eyes for a couple of seconds, before answering.

"I've seen the void and the madness in the chaos between the dimensions. There is really not much that can surprise me." He muttered, before slurping the plate full of slime that Jaco put in front of him. "But apart this fact, I still don't know what you're supposed to be."

"Oh, they are friends of mine and your father's." stated Jaco, while placing a couple of plates full of not-so-healty fruits in front of the ponies. "They are here by accident, and now we have to keep them here 'till Pumpkinhead manages to fix the machine to send them back.""

"Ya're Noxfero's little kid?" asked Applejack, surprised. The little devil ignored her.

"And the purple one was freaking out because…?"

"Oh… Twilight is a city girl. Evwn more than me. I doubt she ever saw a carnivore eating meat." stated Rarity. "Even I have seen some timberwolves hunting down some poor little bunny out of the forest."

"Oh… yes, seeing it is so much different that learning about that in books…." muttered Fluttershy, trying not to look at Esper, who was currently mauling a leg. "But it's just… in the natural order of things… I mean… carnivores eating meat… right?" Esper and Junior shared a glance.

"Yes… natural…." muttered the little devil, darting his tongue out and grasping the finger laying on the table, startling the yellow pegasus.

"Timberwolf? Man, you have seen some weak shit girls. I have to show you a REAL wolf." Grinned Esper. "Then you could say you have seen something…. what did you called it? Ah yes, natural."

"Do it later. If you change in the kitchen, you'll end up scratching all the floor." Hissed the little devil, jumping out of his chair. "Anyway, if it's dad's decision to keep these freaks here, I won't say anything. Just keep them away from my room. Their stench of goodness is suffocating."

" Hey! You're suffocating!" retorted Rainbow Dash. The little devil ignored her, walking towards the door.

"Oh, by the way, I forgot to tell dad that Sasha has returned. Tell him when he's back." Stated Junior, before slamming the door behind him.

"Why, that little…" began Rainbow, being cut off by Pinkie.

"Who's Sasha?"

"Heh, she's a tough one." Grinned Esper, lapping a little bit of blood off his lips. "Freaking vampire. One of the old school, I might add. She's the first servant the boss hired, back in the days."

"Yeah, good times when it was just me and Nox, recruiting all of you. You were the second one." stated Jaco, smiling. "I'd better prepare a glass of blood. She'll be thirsty."

-oOo-

"How can a freaking mare run so much?" growled the devil, running towards the third corridor. "How much I hate the rule of not using major powers of transportation inside our own domain… why the hell did Satan created a rule like that?" he hissed angrily, while turning around a corner. His nose immediately noted an acute smell, and he immediately noticed the little puddle of digestive juices and half digested apple. He darted his eyes around, and noted the half opened door of the library.

"Well… of course she would have ended up here…"

He opened the door, just to see the purple mare laying on the floor, reading happily a book that was in front of her, while a girl with dark red hair, white skin and a purple dress was patting her head.

"Oh… you are back." stated the devil with surprise, walking towards the two. The girl moved her scarlet eyes to the devil, smiling, showing her fangs.

"Hello boss. Yes, returned like half an hour ago, and ended finding this little thing wandering around the library." She said, pointing at the unicorn.

"She let me read her books!" chirped happily Twilight.

"That's nice. I actually thought you would have tried to attack her and her friends. You know… being virgins and all…" whispered the devil. The vampire made an annoyed expression.

"I may have gone to the wedding of my sparkling nephew of my brain-defected side of the family, but I'm not lowering to their level. I don't drink animal's blood." She said grumpily, crossing her arms. The devil nodded, satisfied. At last, one of his servants wasn't a possible threat to the girls.

"Can I read something more? Please?"

"But of course. I think I found someone that actually enjoys my books!" exclaimed happily the girl, jumping towards a bookshelf. "You can stay as much as you like."

"Or untill she gets really, really thirsty." murmured Noxfero, grinning.

Oo-oO

Here, third chapter. Hope you enjoied to meet most of Noxfero's servants, just one left. Drop a review, and see you next time guys.


	4. Normal morning

"So, repeat back to me what you can't do." ordered the archdevil again, looking at the three servants he had gathered in the kitchen.

"I can't eat them." Grunted Esper, frowning. He snarled and muttered something under his breath, but a glare from his master set him silent in an instant.

"I can't dissect, vivisect, or study in any non-consensual way their physiology." stated Pumpkinhead with boredom, evidently impatient to return in his dungeon, where he was likely working over something.

"And I can't drink their blood, even though there wasn't any danger in the first place." Concluded Sasha, adjusting a pair of glasses on her nose. The devil nodded, satisfied.

"Well, I'll count on you then. The girls are staying in their room, after a little bit of arguing about that, but I don't think they'll leave until I go to take them out. But now, I have a meeting. Again. So, you have to keep an eye on them."

"Meeting…? Master, but if I understood correctly, it was Mephisto's fault that all this mess happened, right?" asked the scarecrow, scratching his head. "Aren't you afraid of some sort of revenge? You stopped him, if I remember right."

"He will not risk exposing the fact he travaled to a forbidden dimension to Satan. He'll stay silent. And the same for me… for now…" grunted the devil, slapping his tail on the ground. "I'll have to expose what he did to the boss. But not at a group meeting."

"As you prefer master." Muttered the scarecrow.

"Esper, I need you to go in the guest room and get rid of a boogeyman hidden in the closet." Stated the archdevil, while turning and heading towards the door. The werewolf huffed, but said nothing. The vampire smiled, snickering towards Esper.

"And Sasha, I need you to find Ches and the Slenderman, and tell them not to hurt the ponies. I'm sure that they both usually don't hurt nonhuman creatures, but better safe than sorry." Added the devil. Sasha saluted, before morphing in a big, hairy black bat with a puff of smoke, flapping away. The devil nodded, and disappeared in a swirl of shadows. Pumpkinhead and Esper stayed still for a couple of seconds.

"Well… have fun, wolfy." finally mocked the scarecrow, before darting away, dodging the swing of the other man's clawed hand. Esper growled something, before opening the other door and beginning to walk through the corridors of the castle, fuming a little. When he arrived at the black wooden door of the guest room, he burst it open with a kick, grumbling, startling Fluttershy.

The yellow pegasus, Pinkie Pie and Rainbow Dash were all gathered around a board game on the ground, while Twilight was curled up on the bed, reading the first of a pile of books she had taken from the library. In front of the enormous covered window Applejack was trying to pull aside the curtins, without any result, as Rarity examined the fabric.

"Oh… hello Esper… sir…" muttered Fluttershy. The man ignored her and moved towards the wooden frame of the furniture, sniffing it a little.

"You know, it's nice answer to someone that just said hello to you." Stated Pinkie, glaring a little at the man.

"I'm just trying to ignore you, so I'm not going to be tempted to rip off one of your legs." Muttered the man, tapping a dirty nail on the wood. "Why am I even talking to you anyway? Got to get rid of this boogeyman." Applejack turned, watching as the man continued to tap against the wood of the furnishing.

"Ya mean that thing that scared the living hay out of us last night?"

"I wasn't scared!" exclaimed Rainbow, looking grumpily at the orange mare.

"Of course you were scared. That's what boogeymen do, scare creatures and eat their fears." Muttered the man, scratching his ears. "Usually they haunt childrens' rooms, but they are like parasites here in Hell, since there are all the fears of the tortured souls to eat. And apparently one of them decided to choose this as his home." He muttered. "They are not a great deal, just don't get in the way." The ponies nodded, and returned to their occupation, still keeping an eye on the man as he opened the cabinet's door and began to wrestle with a long string of black hair.

"So… Esper... what's this place like...?" asked Rarity after a couple of minutes, just to try and break the unsettling silence that had filled the room. Esper sighed, while slashing a couple of hairs with his nails.

"What kind of question is that? Since you know the master, I assume you know a little about around here." He muttered, without responding to the excited comment of the pink pony of how strange it was to hear someone calling 'Noxy' master.

"He didn't say much, though. He just said it was a bunch of cruel and dungerous stuff. But since he said the same things about himself, we never take him really seriously." stated Rarity nonchalantly, still studying the curtain's fabric. "Is this silk?"

"Spider's silk, yeah." Stated calmly Esper. Rarity retracted her hoof immediately, slightly disgusted. "What do you mean, you never took him seriously?"

"He never did anything really evil." Stated simply Applejack. Esper blinked at that, but said nothing, as a clawed black hand emerged from the closet, trying to drag him inside. It was quite surprising to hear that… he was surely going to talk about that with the others. Another three hands emerged and continued to drag him inside. Now the mares were all looking worriedly at the man. Esper sighed, and closed his eyes, as a soft, white fur began to grow on his skin.

-oOo-

"So, here we are again, for another amazing morning of fun!" chirped Satan, examining the paperwork in front of him. Noxfero, Daelus and Lilith groaned, in the expectation of another boring couple of hours. Mephisto sighed and tapped a nail on the obsidian table. Noxfero glared for a second at him. In the same moment their eyes had met, they silently agreed to act as usual. There was no need let Satan know that they had both disobeyed him.

"Now, before our normal schedule, I've got an announcement to make: I'm taking some days off. You know, taking my daughter for a little trip on Venus… so, I'll be gone for a week or so."

Mephistopheles' eyes blazed for an instant with scarlet light, as Noxfero paled for a second: that meant that the Archdevil of wrath would have free field for his… whatever he was going to do. The archdevil's ears flapped nervously, as he glared at the scarlet devil.

"Now, having said that…" began the master of the Hell, starting four hours of senseless and boring babbling, which put Daelus to sleep. At the end of the encounter, Noxfero was sprawled over the table, scratching the surface with his claw, while at his sides, Daelus was snoring loudly and Lilith was examining her hair. Taking the hints, Satan stopped trying to confer with them and sent them away in a burst of flames and materialized pain.

"Such an interesting reunion. Especially at the end." stated Daelus, while patting an enormous hand on the little flames burning the fur over his shoulder. Noxfero grinned and nodded, his head still on fire. Daelus looked at him for a couple of seconds, curious. "You seem to be strangely happy Nox. More than usual anyway. Did something happen?" asked the enormous devil. Noxfero opened his mouth, just to notice the amber eyes of Mephisto gazing on them.

"I'll tell you another time…" he muttered, before disappearing in a swirl of shadows. He still had to make a plan to help the girls. He needed help, of course: Mephisto was one of the eldest archdevils, after all. The devil's ears flapped as he relaxed a little, while the shadows retracted, showing the comforting protection of his castle. He yawned, took a couple of steps, and stopped: Jaco was rolling happily over the floor, his body wrapped in a piece of cloth, letting him clean the ground while rolling.

"Hey Nox, you are back early!" he chirped, still rolling on the ground. The bigger devil nodded and proceeded to walk over his minion's face while heading towards the mares' room. "Noxy, if you are searching for the girls, they ran away from their room in fear a couple of hours ago. I think they're actually hiding under your bed."

"Under my bed?"

"Yup, I think they were scared by something."

"Did they see your laundry?"

"Nope, I don't think so."

"Did they see my stuff?"

"Nope."

"Did they see outside?"

"I don't think so."

"So what?" growled Noxfero, grabbing his minion with his tail and raising him into the air.

"They were screaming something about a big wolf. I assume Esper is involved." Choked out the little devil. Noxfero sighed, letting him go.

"Why the hell did they have to follow measked the devil to himself, before hurrying to his room. As Jaco had said, when he entered he saw the six trembling tails of the mares poking out from under his bed. The devil sighed, before crouching and facing the scared mares. "I assume you saw Esper change?" he asked calmly. The whimpers he received in response was enough.

"He didn't attack you, right?" he asked, standing up again and taking off his raincoat. "Usually werewolves can't control their transformations. He can, you don't have to be scared of him. Only if's chasing you, then you have to worry." The mares crawled out of the bed, still trembling. "He just transformed to get rid of the bogeyman in your closet quickly. I'm sure that whatever he did wasn't so scary "

-oOo-

"What the actual fuck Esper!" stated the devil with his mouth slightly open, as he examining the guest room: part of the floor had been torn apart by claw marks, the bed lay ripped in half, part of the wall was cracked and splatters of blue blood were all over the place. Esper grumbled something, while he dragged the rest of the closet out of the room.

"It was a big bogeyman." He stated grumpily, before disappearing down the stairs. Noxfero sighed. That would mean another night with the girls. Well, at least he had all afternoon to calm them down.

"Dad." Stated Junior's voice from behind him: the little devil was standing in the corridor, happily ignoring the mess in the room.

"…Yes? Junior, I'm going to be occupied, so whatever it is, be quick about it." Noxfero grunted, glaring at his son, who didn't react in any way to his father's words.

"You have to do your trip to your level this afternoon. Too much time has passed since your last inspection." Junior stated coldly. Noxfero's ears flapped, as he opened his mouth, trying to find an excuse. "You can't avoid it. Not again." Hissed the little devil. "I had enough of doing your chores all the time. An I'm afraid you can't use those horses as an excuse. You have to do your job."

"Fine, fine!" snarled the archdevil, glaring at his son, that looked at him for a couple more seconds before leaving. Noxfero leaned against the wall, thinking: he had to go, that was true. But he couldn't leave the girls alone. Not with Jaco, of course, he had been a trouble-magnet in Equestria, but in Hell he was even worse. Leaving them with Esper was obviously not a good idea, Pumpkinhead… of course not, Junior was out of question…

The devil turned and walked towards the library. Sasha was of course the betst bet. The only risk was that she would say no.

-oOo-

"Why, of course. I'd love to keep an eye on them." Exclaimed happily the vampire, while floating around the shelves and moving around some books.

"You sure? They could be noisy." Stated the devil from the ground, following the girl with his eyes. The vampire just giggled and moved some other books.

"It's true that I appreciate peace and quiet, but I also appreciate some company. No one comes here, except you and Jaco. Also, they make you happy, so that's a good reason for me to look out for them."

"Why would you say that?!" asked the devil worriedly, his face greying a little. The vampire giggled, floating down and and giving Noxfero a quick kiss on the cheek.

"It's just obvious." She chirped, before floating away again. The devil sighed. At least, maybe things were going a little better.

Well, of course they weren't, but still, he didn't know that.

Oo-oO

New chapter, finally. Hope you liked it. Find a second to drop a review, I want to be sure to do a good job.


	5. First taste of the punishment

"I'm booored!" groaned Rainbow Dash, rolling on the floor, her voice echoing through the silent library. Twilight rose her eyes from the book she was reading and glared at her for the other side of a low table where she, Rarity, Applejack and Fluttershy were calmly reading a group of books. After a couple of minutes of whining, Noxfero had managed to dump the ponies in the library and flee to do whatever he was going to do. Twilight was actually happy to put something apart from the image of the princess being held captive somewhere in her head.

On the other hand, Rainbow and Pinkie, due to their nature, were extremely allergic to books and quiet pasttimes. So, as was easy to predict, they were both bored out of their minds, even if the vampire was still trying to find something for them, without much success: they had already dumped two piles of books.

"We should be trying to save tre princess, not staying here chilling, reading and losing our time!" added Rainbow, sitting and looking at her friends. "It's like you don't care at all!"

"Rainbow!" exclaimed Applejack with a frown. "That's aint true! We all want to save the princess, but Nox told us why we can't do anything for now." The cyan pegasus huffed, crossing her forelegs and pouting. As the Element of Loyalty, staying motionless was as far as she can tell, a treason. She gave only a quick glance to the next book Sasha posed in front of her, before standing on her hooves again and beginning to wander around. She eventually managed to bump into Pinkie Pie, who was tapping a hoof against one of the shelves, bored.

"Hey Pinkie." Muttered Rainbow, sitting at the other mare's side. "Whatcha' doing?"

"Meh." Answered Pinkie, tapping the book. "Nothing. There is nothing to do here."

"Maybe there is something to do outside." Hinted Rainbow, with a little grin on her muzzle. Pinkie tilted her head. "Maybe we should go outside and see." Added the pegasus. The pink mare blinked, before giving an an enomrous grin.

"We could explore around!"

"Heck yeah!" agreed the pegasus, happy to have Pinkie on her side. "We just have to find a way to sneak away from here without the others noticing." she whispererd, before noticing Pinkie pointing to a little purple and scarlet window built over a shelf. The pegasus grinned, before grabbing her friend and silently pulling her over the shelf, opening the window, and crawling outside.

"Here, maybe this book is more of your taste. With battles, blood, orcs, magic, giant eagles and spectral creatures…" stated Sasha, floating down from a high shelf with a big book in her hands, before stopping and looking around. "Where did the rainbow maned one go?" she asked, scanning the table.

"Probably she went off playing the li'l explorer around here somewhere with Pinkie." Stated Applejack, while reading her book on crops and organized culture. "They're not that kind of ponies you'll see behind a table, reading. Not too often anyway."

"Well, as long as they are in the library, it's fine." Commented the vampire, floating over the table, while dusting off her purple gown.

"Is… is it so bad outside…?" asked timidly Fluttershy, daring to look in the vampire's eyes.

"Well…" started Sasha, tapping her long cured nails on the cover of the book she was holding. "Inside the castle it's not realy very safe for you all. It's even less so outside. I thought the master told you."

"Well he did but…" began Fluttershy, cowering a little, uneasy under the gaze of the vampire. "…can't be that bad…right…?" she squeaked. Sasha tapped a nail against her cheek, before answering, measuring her words.

"For a devil it is not quite a dangerous place. For an immortal, like me, it isn't either. For mortals like Esper, it can be a little dangerous, but not too much. For mortals like you, on the other hand, it'll be just a death trap, if you if you wander around alone."

"For real? It's really that bad?" asked Applejack, looking skeptically at the vampire.

"Well yeah. You can easily end up raped, burned, skinned, chopped into pieces, eviscerated and killed. Of course the order can change easily." Stated calmly Sasha, floating again towards the shelf, putting the book in its place. "Do you want some red tea?"

-oOo-

Pinkie and Rainbow observed the environment, stunned: they were posed over an inclined side of a low, black roof, on what seemed to be a wing of an immense and contorted black castle, surrounded by a ditch full of deep dark water. On the other side of the ditch, a large expanse of gray ground and enormous black, spiked rocks similar to hills and high mountains was in full sight before their eyes.

"Well, this seems quite boring…" commented Rainbow after a few seconds. Indeed, the air was still, and no sounds could be heard. The couple of mares looked at each other, before the pegasus grabbed the pink mare and flew with her to the ground on the other side of the moat.

"Look Rainbow! There are passages between the spikes! Maybe the fun is on the other side!" chirped Pinkie excitedly, pointing at something similar to a tunnel leading inside one of the enormous rocks.

"Well, I suppose… but it's too quiet." Huffed the cyan pegasus, following the hopping pink mare inside the tunnel. After a few minutes of calm walking, they finally got out of the tunnel, being blinded for a couple of seconds from the intense and sudden light: the red sky played host to a big, yellow blazing sun, that apparently was hidden by the rocks around the castle.

The path they were following continued along the gray ground, while on both sides, there were two deep cracks in the ground, from where streams of flames erupted time to time.

"Well well well… this is far more radical!" exclaimed the pegasus with a smile. "Imagine all the acrobatics I can do here!" she added, looking around. The pink mare nodded, while looking at a little purple flower emerging from the ground.

"This place is strange, but I don't know why Noxy said that it was dangerous…" she commented, before trotting behind Rainbow, missing seeing the flower opening and trying to grab her tail with a long and tough pseudopod.

"Oh yeah, I'll have to say something to that devil! keeping us away from the cool stuff!" grinned Rainbow, twirling in the air, and turning towards Pinkie, flying backwards. "You don't mind, right?" she asked, with a grin. Pinkie blinked.

"Uh?"

"If I scold him a little." Explained Rainbow, still with her grin on her muzzle. Pinkie raised an eyebrow, trying to understand why Rainbow was smirking like that. She opened her mouth to ask for an explanation, but was cut off by a muffled voice, pleading from inside one of the cracks:

"He…lp m…e…"

The two mares jumped, startled, looking around, to try and find the source of the plea. Their eyes eventually ended up at the crack at their side. The two mares trotted towards the edge, looking slowly beneath them: a few feet down from the edge, chained and hooked to the crack's wall with a series of rusty hooks, there was a person.

The two ponies stepped back at first, stunned by the condition of the creature. He was clearly similar to Noxfero in his general structure, even if his hair was blond and his skin was far paler than the devil's. His flesh was gashed, some wounds pouring out little streams of blood and bile. He was completely naked, except for the remains of a pair of shorts around his tights, protecting only a little part of his body from the fire that time to time erupted from below him, scorching his chest and face.

"Oh.. my… Celestia…" finally muttered Rainbow. "Hey… hey you, what's happened?" she cried down, looking at the figure. He raised his head slowly, carefull not to pull on any of the hooks that were holding his neck against the wall, and looked at them with pleading eyes.

"Please…just…please…take…take me out of here…" he gurgled out, as another stream of flame blasted out from below him. The two mares looked at each other, before crouching on the ground.

"We have to help that poor guy!" stated Rainbow. Pinkie nodded, before returning to look at the crack.

"This is what Noxy meant by dangerous…?" she whispered. The pegasus shrugged, before waiting for the next flame. As soon as the stream of fire extinguished, she flew down to the same height as the whimpering creature, and rapidly as she could, she began to remove the rusty hooks.

She had to use her mouth, since her hooves weren't exactly the most accurate of instruments. The taste of the metal and the dried blood was nauseating, but she managed to resist the impulse to gag. Slowly, flying out every time another flame was starting to light the depths of the crack, she managed to free the skinny creature, taking him onto her back and dragging him outside the crack.

With a little thump, she dropped the creature on the ground. He panted, his eyes closed, clearly in pain. But on his face there was the biggest smile the two mares had ever seen.

"I… don't know what you two are… if angels, hallucinations or something…but…but thank you for taking me out of there." He finally managed to say, sitting up.

"Hey, don't mention it pal. Anyone would have taken you out of there." Exclaimed Rainbow, puffing out her chest.

"Who did that to you?" asked Pinkie worriedly. "Maybe Noxy can beat him for what he did!"

"I… the devils…they did that… I have to get out of…here…" managed to say the man, trying to stand on his feet. Pinkie trotted over, helping him to stand. "We have to go…before they catch us…"

"Maybe we can bring him to the castle! Nox might protect him from all the other nasty devils!" exclaimed Pinkie, smiling. Rainbow huffed, flapping her wings.

"I say we carry him out of here the fastest possible way. Who knows how many problems Nox could have trying to protect him."

"Hey, what are you three doing?" asked a cold voice behind them, making them turn: a two meters tall, slim creature was looking at them. Its body was extremely geometrical and featureless, its chest, arms and legs similar to sticks. Its head was a big purple fireball, with a couple of yellow dots inside it.

"It's one of them!" screamed the man, as he grabbed Pinkie's mane in fear. "Let's get out of here!"

"Holy cow, you are escaping!" screamed the creature, an instant before Rainbow charged into its chest, pushing him easily to the ground.

"Run Pinkie!" cried out the pegasus mare, turning and flapping her wings, as the creature on the ground groaned. Pinkie immediately turned and started to gallop away, following the path. She continued to run, even when from behind them came a horrible screech, emitted by the creature.

"More of those things ahead!" cried out Dash, lowering her head and hitting at full speed another creature that had just emerged from behind a spiky hill, sending him to the ground. The pink mare just easily dodjed the silly attempts of the creatures to catch her. It wasn't even really funny, since they seemed to be unable to bend their legs and arms, giving them quite a not scary appearence while trying to grab the mare with their little fingers. After a few minutes of being chased, Pinkie just stopped running and proceeded with her usual hopping along the way.

"Hay… stop right there Pinkie!" ordered suddenly the pegasus, glaring ahead. "There is a large field, but… that's crazy, it's covered in glass shards! We have to go around it."

"But… but if we do it, they'll catch us!" screamed the man. "You have to go through! You have to!" screamed the man, tugging the mare's mane. Pinkie nodded, still hopping.

"He's right Dashie. We have to stay ahead!" she shouted at the pegasus, before arriving at the field. Indeed, it was a large field, made of white, thin sand, where glass shards emerged, shining under the sun. The mare put a hoof in the sand and tasted a couple of grains: salt. She breathed heavily, and started to gallop. After a few seconds, she was already screaming in pain: her hooves sank into the salt at every step, getting cuts on her underhooves and lower leg area from the glass, with the salt adding even more pain.

"This is nuts! We have to turn back!" cried out Rainbow. This was indeed nuts! She just wanted to explore!

"I… I can take this Dash… but… when we are going to get out of here, mister?" managed to say the pink mare. The man on her back blinked.

"I don't have the slightest idea."

"What?!" snapped Dash, flying down and glaring at the man. "You mean you don't know where we are?!" she growled, planting her magenta eyes on the man.

"Well… since you came to save me, I tought you knew where to go!" yelled the man. Rainbow was about to retort, but at that point, one of Pinkie's forelegs gave out, and the mare fell to the ground, wounding her flank and sending the man to the desert floor. The scream of pain from Pinkie sent a cold chill down Rainbow's spine.

"Buck… come here, Pinkie, we are getting out of here…" panted the cyan pegasus. How was possible things had worsened so fast? Was this what Noxfero meant by dangerous? Of course it was! Why hadn't they done as he'd said?

"Here they are!" cried out one of the creatures, running towards them with his ridiculous shamble, followed by a big group of other creatures. Rainbow growled and charged one of them, sending it to the ground. A couple fo them flanked her and grabbed her wings, forcing her to fall down.

The man tried to crawl away, before one of the creatures grabbed him by the neck, raising him into the air, as well as Pinkie, who faintly wiggled her hooves in the air, trying to free herself, spraying a shower of tiny scarlet drops over the white salt.

"We should bring them to the master. They do not seem to be angels. But they are not devils either." Commented one of the creatures, sniffing Dash's mane, as she tried to bite her captor's arm.

"Agreed!" cried in chorus the other creatures, before starting to march calmly away from the field, back down the path that the three escapees had left behind them. Rainbow continued to wiggle, trying to get free from the grip of steel that the creatures had on her. She continued in her attempts, failing to notice what was happening around them, until a surprised voice caught her attention.

"What the…?"

She raised her eyes, and noticed that the environment had changed: they were on the edge of a cliff, and far below them was an endless expanse of bloodied metallic spikes, where a series of tiny bodies were impaled. On the edge of the cliff, Noxfero, who apparently had been reading a bunch of papers that were held in his hand, had raised his eyes and widened them, looking at the scene in front of him. Jaco was at his feet, looking surprised as well, ignoring the flaming arrow sticking out of his forehead. Behind them, a stoic bulky creature with the head of a rhino was looking at them, impassible.

"These two creatures helped this soul to escape, boss." Stated one of the thin creatures, pointing his arm first at Pinkie, then at the human. Noxfero turned, raising an eyebrow. "We thought they were strange creatures, even for angels, so we thought to bring them here. The soul as well, since the punishment is as you will."

"Where did you get them?" he asked in a neutral, cold voice, examining the three as if they were objects of low interest, his eyes stopping for a second more on the bloodied side and hooves of the pink earth pony.

"In the plain of salt, boss."

"Well then. First, the soul…" ordered the devil, taking a step towards them. "Send him back to his place. Shove a blazing poker in his mouth, and put salt and lemon juice on his cuts. I'll come to cut him later." He ordered, impassible.

"What? You can't do that Nox! He didn't do anything wrong!" screamed Rainbow. Noxfero just ignored her, gesturing to one of the creatures, who took the soul and walked away.

"Now... these two are indeed neither angels nor devils. They are just an experiment of my scientist. They are fine specimens, so don't hurt them further. Just bring them to the castle again. Jaco, go with them." ordered the devil. His minion nodded, and joined the two tall creatures that were holding the ponies. They turned, and started to walk slowly down the path.

"Why does everything have to be so difficult?"

-oOo-

Celestia opened her eyes slowly, and the first thing she noticed, even before the pain, was the color: red. It was red everywhere. The walls, the ceiling, the windows. Even the table where she was bound down was red. Then came the pain.

The alicorn emitted an acute scream, due to the pain she hadn't felt in the past thousand years. It came from every inch of her body, from her skin, muscles and bones. She screamed, as she tried to free herself from the metallic bindings holding her down, her wings flapping crazily.

"Back to the living, I see." Commented a cold voice that thrusted inside her mind like a nail. "So, what can you tell me about her?"

"Well master… sacred energy, as I assumed in that… dreadful place. A very large amount, it'll take rather long to extract it all. But now that she's awake, at least it'll be entertaining."

"I never needed to ask why you chose to work for the nazis, when you were alive: you gave me the answer every time I saw your work."

"Danke, master. Now, as you can see, the nails in her spine and wingbones, apart from inflicting pain, serve as extractors. It'll be slow, drop after drop. But we should do it."

"About the statue?"

"That's longer. We are still working on that."

"Well, for now, suck her dry. After that, kill her and store her soul somewhere. She'll be an exotic toy."

Celestia cringed in pain, trying to give an order to her thoughts. But that was impossible. The pain was too much. There was also this strange feeling, inside of her. So strange, so unnatural…

Fear. She hadn't felt fear in years. Not even when Nightmare Moon menaced the world to try and make the night last forever a second time had she feared: she had known Twilight would restore the Elements. But now she was feeling fear.

And for the first time after her sister's return, she cried.


	6. The garden

The group of Anons around the table were staring with terror at the cloaked figure lurking behind them. The figure glared at them from under his hood. The Anons were sweating, knowing what was going to happen. One of them gulped.

Suddenly the figure turned and pointed a hand at the anon, who emitted a choked gasp and grasped his own throat. The other Anons crawled back, as the Anon gasped and fell on the table, motionless. The hood of the figure fell back, revealing a monkey. In a ninja mask.

"I found your lack of reviewing… disturbing." He muttered in a raspy tone, as a couple of anons dragged away the dead body.

Oo-oO

I'm sorry. I'm really, really sorry. But since I read that review, I had this image in my head. I had to put it down. Ok, back to our schedule, whatever it is.

Oo-oO

"Ouchie!" lamented Pinkie, as the vampire passed a needle through her flesh, starting to sew one of the numerous cuts on the mars legs closed. "It hurts."

"Of course it hurst. Just stay still, it'll be over soon." Sasha tried to reassure, while sewing the wound shut. Jaco and a couple of minions had brought back the earth pony and the pegasus more or less half an hour ago, and since they arrived, Sasha washed the cuts on the pink mare, cleaning out the salt residue, before starting to sew them up.

The other mares were all staring and comforting Pinkie, while Rainbow was sitting in a corner of the room, staring at the ground in silence.

"Wow Sasha, I didn't knew you were a doctor too!" exclaimed Jaco, apparently the only one not worried about the pink pony's injuries, while jumping on Nox's bed. "You are like a Barbie: with a whole lot of occupations!"

"Well, contrary to the idiotic part of my family, I actually managed to learn a whole lot of skills during all my years." Stated the vampire, without distracting herself from her work. She tugged gently on the needle and ripped the thread, moving to another wound.

"Don't you have a more painless way to help her?" asked Rarity, while looking at the needle, one of the tools she usually used to make wonderful and gorgeous dresses, watching as it stabbed again into the flesh of Pinkie causing another squeak of pain.

"Sorry, but no." Commented the vampire. Pinkie kicked with one of her hindlegs, holding back a little squeal. "This is the quickest and safest method. Don't worry, I know what am I doing." Said the vampire, smiling. In reality, she was quite scared, from a series of different factors: first of all, Noxfero. He was going to be furious that she didn't notice the escape of the two mares. She was going to be punished.

Secondly, all those bleeding wounds were tempting. Even if she wasn't really thirsty. Just the sight. She was nearly at the point of licking the mare's wounds, but just holding back in time. She was going to be in trouble, and it was better to not worsen her situation.

"Why in tarnation did you two have to leave here?!" asked angrily the orange mare, stomping her hoof on the ground. "Noxfero said it was going to be dangerous! Why the hay did you two have to ignore him!" she said loudly, glaring at the two mares. Pinkie was actually too distracted by her injuries to pay much attention to Applejack's scolding, but Rainbow just grasped her own legs and said nothing. "Ya could've been hurt even worse!"

"Applejack dear, they don't need this now." Said Rarity, trying to calm down her friend. "That could have happened, but it didn't. Let's just be glad they are here." She said, rubbing a hoof on Applejack's back. The earth pony grumbled, but sat again on the floor, and changed back to a worried expression, looking at Pinkie. Twilight was patting her friend's forehead, while Fluttershy, with a strangely strong expression, was passing to Sasha some clean bandages that the vampire used to wrap the pink mare's legs and flank.

"Ok, this is good. Of course you shall not walk for a few days, but at least those slashes weren't so deep." Commented the vampire, standing up. "And the salt, even if painful, will eliminate any chance of infection."

"Wall, isn't that nice and dandy?" growled a cold voice. Noxfero was at the door, glaring furiously inside. Jaco looked at him and jumped at his side, smiling.

"Hey, you're here early!" he chirped, jumping around the bigger devil. He evidently wasn't in the mood for it, since he simply kicked him out of the way, stomping towards the bed.

"I had to convince the overseer that those two were actually Pumpkinhead's creations. Then I suspended everything and returned here." He hissed, looking at Pinkie. "How is she?"

"Well…" began the vampire, gulping, trying to maintain a straight face. "The slashes weren't so deep, and were already disinfected by the salt, I just had to clean the cuts and fix them. She won't walk for a few days, though."

"Well then. I hope you two are happy." Hissed the devil, moving his eyes between Rainbow and Pinkie. "Now pray tell me. What. The. Actual. Fuck. Were you two thinking when you got the amazing idea of leaving the castle, going against what I told you?!" said in a low tone the devil, without moving his eyes.

"It was… my fault…" muttered Rainbow, raising her face. "I was bored staying closed in the library… without anything to do and all…"

"So you thought it was a good idea going around in a place that I clearly marked as dangerous, just for fun?!" hissed the devil, his tail slapping furiously the floor. Rainbow lowered again her eyes, evidently trying to hold back some tears.

"Now Noxy, come on, she doesn't need to hear that, she already feels bad enough." Said Jaco, while stretching in place his face.

"Well, I think that is the least, if she's feeling bad!" growled the devil, taking a step forwards. "After all, it's your fault that Pinkie is like that!"

"You leave her alone!"

Noxfero blinked, before turning his eyes on the mare laying on his bed: Pinkie Pie was glaring at him. The other four mares quickly passed their eyes between her angry expression and the astonished and hurt face of the devil.

"Excuse me… what?!" he finally managed to say, looking at the pink pony. She continued to glare at him, pouting her lower lip a little.

"I said you leave her alone! You… you meanie!"

"Uuuuuuuh!" hollered Jaco from behind them, only to receive a quick kick in the face.

"I…uh… what?!" asked in disbelief the demon, flapping his ears.

"You heard me! Stay away from her! Do you want to hurt her?!"

"Why should I want to hurt her?" asked in disbelief the devil.

"Pinkie, what are you talking about?" asked Twilight, slightly concerned.

"Nox! He took a poor guy that we were trying to save and handed him to the bad guys! He was trying to escape from a horrible prison, you know?! BUT YOU JUST GAVE HIM AWAY!"

"Now listen here missy!" hissed the devil, taking a menacing step forwards, his wings snapping open. "You don't tell ME how I'm supposed to do MY job! If I have to punish the fugitives, I do that!"

"Fugitives?! Then you were the one HOLDING him?!"

"News of the hour Pinkie: that's what I fucking DO! Evidently you missed this part when you had me mesh the fucking flour back in Ponyville! Now I try to fucking keep all of you safe and in exchange I have to listen to THIS?! Well, fuck you!" snapped the devil, his tail stabbing a tile, sending pebbles all around, mostly into Jaco's left eye. He turned and stomped towards the door, fuming, his little minion with the bloody eye right behind him.

"You and Rainbow fucking don't move from this room until I'm back. And that's an order. If you'll try to go anywhere, I swear on my wings your next room is going to be a cell!"

"Fine!"

"Fine!"

"FINE!"

"FINE!" Roared the devil, slamming the door. Actually, it slammed it so hard that it fell off from its frame. The devil looked at the ebony door in his hand, before tossing it to the ground and walking away, growling and bearing his fangs, while kicking Jaco at every step.

Pinkie continued to pout, but as soon as the sound of Jaco's body colliding with Nox's feet disappeared from the corridor outside, her face turned into a sad one, while her mane straightened and fell down with a light poof.

An awkward silence filled the room, as the other mares and the vampire looked around, trying to find anything to say.

"Well…err… since your legs are still healing… well… don't try to move get out of bed…" managed to say the vampire. "Dash, keep an eye on her please. The rest of you… well, let's head back to the library."

Sasha began to gently push the other four mares out of the room, when an enormous tentacle of darkness emerged from the corridor, grabbed her leg and began to drag her away.

"On second thought, maybe you should all just stay in the room. I'll be back soon." She called, as the mares looked scared the shadows surrounding her.

-oOo-

"Well that was something… unexpected." Muttered Rarity to herself, while waiting in the corridor. "I actually never thought I would ever see Noxfero raise his voice. He never did that when he was in Ponyville." She muttered, without noticing Junior passing before her, and he stopped to listen to her muttering.

"Is it some strange pony custome to stay still in the middle of the corridor, talking to the air?" he asked, raising an eyebrow. Rarity didn't answer immediately, her attention drawn by the bucket full of pulsing hearts in the little devil's hands. She gulped before focusing her eyes on Junior's.

"I'm waiting for Fluttershy. She had to use the little fillies room." She said, pointing at the bathroom door beside her. Junior shrugged, before walking away.

"Whatever. Just tell your friend to be careful of the sea serpents and the pirhanas of the sewers. Sometimes they swim up the pipes." He called, before turning a corner, causing an 'Eeep' of panic to come out from behind the door. Rarity rolled her eyes, and backed away when the door opened and Fluttershy almost tripped on her own mane, as she hastily tried to get out of the room as fast as possible.

"Ok, I'm done!… I think we can return back…" she muttered, closing the door. "Thank you for escorting me… I wouldn't feel safe all alone… wandering the castle… sorry…"

"You don't have to be sorry Fluttershy, I can imagine this place isn't your favorite kind of environment, yes?" the unicorn mare said softly, while starting to walk back at Fluttershy's side, as the pegasus flapped her wings a little, uneasy. "Even if I'm very proud of you Fluttershy." Stated suddenly Rarity, smiling. "You were the only one of us knowing what to do, with Pinkie."

"Thank you…" murmured the pegasus, giving a little smile. Then she stopped, looking suddenly amazed by something outside one of the windows on one side of the corridor. Rarity stopped herself and joined her friend, looking outside, and her mouth fell slightly open: these windows didn't look on the outside of the castle like the window in Noxfero's room. This one actually looked out on a big garden. An enormous garden, as a matter of factr.

-oOo-

"Oh my… I would have never guessed…" said Fluttershy excitedly, looking around in awe (Well, excited for Fluttershy's standards anyway). They managed to find a stairway down, and finally found a door that led to the outside. They were now on a black path between patches of light purple grass. They couldn't actually see the end of it.

"This is… quite beautiful." Agreed Rarity, as a group of crystalline flowers emitted an adorable squeal when she sniffed at them. Then, without any warning, one of them spread its petals, and with a loud burp, it spat a puke-covered onto the ground. The flower gulped and burped again, spitting a broom onto the little demon's head.

"Ya goddamned plant! I'll have my revenge one day!" spat the little demon, waving a little fist at the flowers, which just purred in response. Rarity blinked, looking surprised as the little demon raised on his feet again, and noticed her and Fluttershy. "Hey there girls. What are you doing out here?" he asked, while cleaning the flower's puke from his face.

"Well… I, I mean, we, just saw this garden, and… Jaco, your face is on fire!" managed to blabbe Rarity, as the plant puke bubbled and exploded in little stains of green flames on the little demon's face, accompanied by a scream of pain.

-oOo-

"Well… this garden is not the most safe place around, but since you are with me…" muttered the little devil, his face wrapped in bandages, as his mount (Fluttershy) and Rarity walked slowly down the path.

"You can keep us out of danger?" asked the yellow pegasus, daring a little smile.

"Heck no! But at least the plants will target me and not you. Noxfero taught them to eat me on sight." Exclaimed the little devil, while from one side of the path a group of black roses hissed and leaned towards him, the petals wiggling in the air.

"Oh, poor thing. That's a shame, though... these plants are so beautiful." stated Fluttershy, raising a hoof and cautiously patting one of the roses. Immediately the flower began to purr, brushing itself against the mare's hoof, causing a little fit of giggles. "It tikles!"

"Wow Shy, good with animals AND also plants? You are freaking amazi-" began Jaco, while leaning towards the flowers as well, just a second before one of them darted in and chomped off the upper part of Jaco's head. "You see, for me it's not so easy to stay here in the garden…" muttered Jaco's mouth, as he bagan to wiggle his arms around.

"Could you please give his head back? Pretty please? He needs them to show us around." cooed softly the yellow pegasus, rubbing softly one of the flowers. The plant trembled, growled softly, and then spat back the half of the head.

"Yup, we should hire you as a gardener." babbled the little devil, while trying to fix his own head.

"Ouh, I would love that! These flowers are so beautiful and cute." Giggled the pegasus, scratching a last time the flowers before starting again to walk.

"I have to admit they are gorgeous. I never expected Noxfero to have such good taste in decorations." Added Rarity, trying to pat a crystalline flower, wich purred a little, amused by the touch.

"Well, he's not, all the plants here were Envy flowers, so when we brought in some plants from our boss' garden, they morphed, out of envy, trying to emulate them." Explained the little devil, trying to fix his head with a little bit of duct tape. "Actually, Envy flower are usually quite gross. We keep them closed in a greenhouse 'til they are full grown."

"In that structure?" asked Rarity, pointing at a big glassy structure a little away from their location, which had a few glass panels opened to allow air to flow in and out.

"No. That one." Stated Jaco, pointing to a little wooden shed far away from them, the crippled wood covered in uninviting vines. "I actually don't know what the use of the cute one is."

-oOo-

The two mares continued their walk, looking in wonder at the different kinds of flowers that inhabited the enormous garden, from the crystalline lilies to the golden apple trees. Jaco, between a bite and a slap from the plants, guided the two deeper and deeper into the garden, towards a tall, rocky fence under a group of even taller trees.

"Oh dear, what is behind this fence?" asked Rarity, looking puzzled as she eyed a black gate barring the only way inside. Fluttershy's ears perked up as soon as a series of animal' noises responded the white unicorn's question.

"Well, this is our menagerie. Well, actually it's just our pets' home, we actually don't have a true breeding facility of anything." Commented the little devil, failing to notice the long and thin scarlet tentacle descending from one of the trees.

"Oh, little critters! How cute, you give them a home, a bed and food and cuddles and love!" exclaimed Fluttershy, clapping excitedly her hooves and squealing in glee. Rarity let out a smile while the pegasus grabbed the little devil and began to squeeze his face. "Can we see them? Can we? Can we?"

"Ah sshume yeah." Blurted the little devil, while his face was squeezed by a couple of buttery hooves. The pegasus emitted another squeal, as the little devil freed himself and proceeded to open the black gate. The pegasus immediately darted inside, followed by a smiling Rarity.

"Thank you Jaco. This will surely help Shy to relax a little. After all that shouting…"

"Nah, don't mention it." Smiled the little devil, taking a few steps, just before the tentacle grabbed him, and in a couple of dragged him up to the top of the tree, which gulped down his little body in an instant.

"…Okay…" muttered the unicorn, slowly following Fluttershy while giving a few glances at the tree, wich was now purring, satisfied. Inside the fenced area, Fluttershy was looking happily at a bunch of little rats with a shining black fur and little scarlet eyes.

"Ouh, look at all these cute little mousies!" chirped the pegasus, patting one of the rats, wich emitted a happy squeack. All the other rats squeacked in protest and charged the mare, pushing her on the ground and beginning to snuggle into her buttery coat. The pegasus let out a giggle, wiggling her legs due to the tickling sensation. Rarity smiled, but didn't walk too close to the rats.

She looked around the large area, noting a large cage with spiked bars. Inside, on a contorted, black tree, a couple of fat ravens were spying outside. They were almost big as she was! The unicorn looked at the cage, noticing the bones on the ground. She gulped and passed by. She passed another couple of minutes looking around, before noticing that suddenly the rats had started to run away from Fluttershy, running under the crow's cages.

"Oh…oh my! Come here, I'm sorry if I scared you." Called suddenly worried Fluttershy, trying to stop the little critters, which dodged her hooves and disappeared. "Oh…I'm sorry, little fureballs… please don't be mad with me…" she squeaked, trying to convince the rats to come out. "Rarity, can you help me calm these little guys?" she asked, tuning her head.

Rarity was staring at a cave in the stone fence. A low growl was rising, as its occupant began to step out, snarling and growling. The unicorn began to walk backwards, as a big and snarling cerberus emerged from the cave: he was far smaller that the one guarding the Tartarus, back in Equestria, but was bigger than the ponies were anyway. Bigger than Noxfero too. Two of its Doberman heads were snarling in a menacing manner at the couple of ponies, while the third one was chewing on a bone.

"Oh, look at this! What a cute little doggy!" exclaimed excitedly Fluttershy, beginning to trot towards the cerberus, which gave a low, menacing growl, baring its fangs. Rarity opened her mouth, trying to stop the yellow mare from charging straight into the beast's maws.

"Hey! You, get away from him!" roared an unkonown voice. Rarity moved her eyes from Fluttershy to the direction the scream had come: from a little shed that was almost hidden behind a group of empty cages, a big panther was galloping towards them.

"Now I have seen everything." the unicorn briefly thought, before remembering that panthers eat meat.

"Get away! Or do you want to become… his…snack…." Began the panther, suddenly slowing and looking with astonishment at the pegasus: she was happily rubbing the cerberus' tummy, as the three-headed dog laid on its back, its heads grinning in satisfaction, one of its hindlegs kicking the air. "Well… this is new…" muttered the panther, tilting its head.

"Well… Fluttershy is good with every kind of animal." stated Rarity with a smile, watching as the pegasus began to motorboat the cerberus' belly. The unicorn then turned towards the feline. "Please don't eat us." She asked tensely to the panther which let out a laugh, startling Fluttershy and the cerberus.

"Don't you worry. I'm not here to eat the animals, you know? I just tend to them." Chuckled the panther. "Now, you two are creations of Pumpkinhead? Do I have to prepare a cage for you or do you stay free?" she asked, taking a few steps towards the couple of mares. Rarity waved a hoof.

"No no, we are friends of Noxfero! We are not experiments or anything!" she exclaimed. The panther tilted its head again, its black fur shining under the few rays of light that managed to pass through the leaves of the tall trees surrounding the fenced area.

"Something must have happened while I wasn't here, then." The feline finally muttered, before beginning to emit puffs of smoke from its skin. The dark curtin surrounded the panther, hiding it from sight. When the smoke disappeared, Rarity blinked in surprise. A woman was now standing where the panther had been sitting a few seconds before.

Rarity was firstly quite surprised at the creature's appearance: Esper was light skinned, Noxfero was pale, Sasha was even paler. This human's skin was, on the other hoof, extremely dark. A dark shade of brown, which accented the numerous green and azure markings that she had on her body. She was also, to the contrary of all the other creatures that the unicorn had seen in that place, almost without clothing, her only dress a little piece of cloth around her waist. The woman scanned the unicorn, while passing a long-nailed finger through her short curly black hair, while her golden, feline eyes studied Rarity.

"The others have to fill me in about what's happened. I've just returned from a witch reunion. It must be something big, if there is a cute pegasus and a beautiful unicorn here." She finally stated, opening in a smile. Rarity smiled as well, trying not to look too concerned about the long and sharp teeth in the woman's mouth.

"Oh, you are the one tending to all these little cuties?" asked Fluttershy, while riding the cerberus as it trotted happily towards the woman and the unicorn, his tail wiggling happily in the air. The woman nodded, scratching one of the chins of the dog.

"Yes. I'm in charge of the gardens and the animals. After a few days, it's a easy job."

"If you are not eaten in those few days." Commented Jaco, stumbling inside the fenced area and closing the gate behind him. "Welcome back Zira. I'll tell Noxy you are back!" he chirped. The woman gave a quick nod, gesturing to the ponies.

"These two are guests?"

"Who? I'm currently blinded by the tree's digestive juices. I can't see shit."

"That would explain why you aren't staring at my chest, droolling."

"There are actually four more of us." Muttered Fluttershy, while patting two of the cerberus' heads.

"Well, I guess that I should meet them. I also have to ask for a book from the vampire, soo…"

"That's great! We should go in, then!" exclaimed Jaco happily. A moment later, the pack of rats emerged from under the cage, charged him, knocked him over, and dragged his screaming self into their hiding spot.

"Poor dearies, they must be hungry…" chuckled the woman with an evil grin, purring.


	7. Acceptance

The black door of the garden opened, permitting Fluttershy and Rarity to enter into the castle, both of them with a relaxed expression on their muzzles. The unicorn mare had a crystalline flower tangled in her mane, chirping happily. Behind them, the black panther that was Zira moved in, while on her back laid Jaco, his body mauled and shredded by the rat's bites.

"Return to your friends you two. I'll see if I can find the master and ask him about you." Purred the panther, before passing them and starting to run through the dark corridor, disappearing from sight in a few seconds.

"Well, she was nice…" said softly Fluttershy, while taking a couple of steps over the carpet. "After what happened to Pinkie and Rainbow, I was scared that everyone here was scary and dangerous, like the male one…" she murmured, walking down the corridor.

"Well, at least we know that Miss Sasha and Miss Zira are quite an enjoyable company. We should let the others meet her. At least they can distract themselves a little."

"Well…maybe… but shouldn't we try to search for the princess?" asked timidly the pegasus, studying her unicorn friend through her pink mane.

"I'm worried for the princess, like everyone else. But I also understand that trying to wander around aimlessly, or slamming our heads into books as Twilight is doing won't be of any help." Stated Rarity, the flower in her mane purring softly while biting the mare's ear gently with its petals. "I think we should trust Noxfero." She added, shrugging. "He knows this place better than us, and if he says he knows what to do, I trust him. And I also think that going around hurting ourselves, like Pinkie and Rainbow did, is just making him feel even worse. Especially Pinkie."

The yellow pegasus let out a little giggle, before stopping in front of the black door of the room. Rarity's horn lit up, pushing open the heavy metallic frame, and they both entered in the room. First thing they noticed was that Sasha was again with them. She was sitting on the bed beside Pinkie, trying to interest the flat-maned mare in a big heavy book that she was holding. The second thing they noticed was that neither Twilight nor Applejack were in the room.

"There you are, you two. I was starting to get worried!" exclaimed Rainbow Dash, rushing to her friends side and dragging them inside the room. "It's over an hour!"

"I'm sorry Rainbow…" immediately apologized Fluttershy, bowing her head. "We just went out to the garden, and we met Jaco, who showed us around, and then we saw all these beautiful flowers, and then there was a place with a whole bunch of cute creatures and…" began Fluttershy, showering the other pegasus with an accurate description of what they had seen. Rarity smiled and trotted towards the bed.

"Hello Pinkie dear. How are your wounds doing?" she asked softly. The pink mare moved her head a little, waving her flat mane and giving a quick glance at the unicorn, before lowering again her sight.

"They sting." She answered in a raspy voice, without looking at the unicorn.

"Don't worry Pinkie, I'm sure that you'll be ok in a jiffy!" said Rarity, trying to cheer up her friend. Seeing the lack of reaction, she redirected her attention towards the woman at Pinkie's side. "Where are the others?"

"Your purple friend was looking for some peculiar books, so I sent her back to the library. My ass is actually too sore to move around freely." Groaned the vampire, passing a hand over her backside. "Well, I should be thankfull that master didn't do anything really bad, I think…" she added, muttering. "Anyway, the path is quite stright from here to the library, so I assumed she could do that easily. The orange one insisted on escorting her."

"Oh my… is there any danger?" asked Rarity, her body tensing.

"Not really, if they don't stray." Shrugged the woman. "And I don't see why they should."

-oOo-

"Twi, Ah don't remember this being the way back to the room." Grunted Applejack, as the unicorn in front of her continued to descend down a set of narrow and dark stairs.

"We aren't returning to the room." Whispered Twilight in a rush, lighting up her horn. "If we want to save the princess, we'll have to find all the possible information here, before trying anything. And since we are short on time, I think that research in the field might be better than reading a whole bunch of books."

Applejack rolled her eyes. That wasn't reassuring her the slightest.

She could actually understand Twilight's determination: the unicorn sometimes became really obsessed with things. And now the princess was involved, so her reaction wasn't unexpected.

"Twilight, Ah think we should do what that gal told us and return to the room. Ah don't think that we'll find anything wandering around in Nox's castle."

"I have already seen that there isn't any book that says how to go around safely in this place, so I deduced that they must have some sort of hoofbook! We should find one, so we'll be able to avoid getting hurt."

"Ah don't think this is a good idea…" stated Applejack, trying to stop the unicorn. "Ah think that this place is dangerous in any event, and no hoofbook will help us. Noxy said he would fix this. Ah think that trying to do things on our own will just make it harder for him."

"Are you saying that we just shouldn't care?" Hissed back Twilight, turning and looking angrily at her. The orange mare met her eyes, frowning a little.

"Ah would never say something like that. Ah'm saying that risking hetting hurt ourselves will not help anyone." Stated back the earth pony, stomping her hoof on the ground. "You have seen what's happened to Pinkie and Dash, just because they wanted a little fun. You remember what took the princess, right?" she asked, stepping towards her purple friend. "Sugarcube, Ah want to save the princess too. The others do. Hay, even Noxfero wants that. But we have to be carefull."

The purple mare's face seemed to melt, as her angry frown changed in a sadder expression. Applejack was surprised by the sudden change, but then just leaned forwards and slipped a leg around her friend's neck and pulled her closer.

"Ah know that you're feeling worried. But the princess wouldn't want you to go around without knowing where to go, ending in hurt yourself." she whispered, stroking Twilight's mane.

"I know! But just… laying here, without doing anything… it just drives me insane!" said Twilight, biting her lip.

"Doing nothing actually implies doing something." purred a soft voice above the two mares. They both moved their eyes up, startled, and focused on a fat cat, perched over a carved protuberance in the black wall. His black and scarled striped fur was shining slightly, reflecting the light of the candlesticks hanging from the ceiling, which also made his big smile full of sharp teeth glow.

"But that would imply also that something and nothing are the same thing, and that's against the rules of reality. And you know that what implies?" asked the cat, focusing his eyes on the two mares. His eyes were both red, but Applejack noted that they were transitioning to a blue color.

"What…?" she asked cautiously, staring at the cat. For all she knew, that seemingly innocent cat could transform into a three headed monster any second.

"That all the reality and order is just a thin cover upon the real essence of existence: pure, indominable chaos." Purred the cat, tilting his head and waving slowly his furry tail. Then he stepped up and walked forwards, leaving the protuberance and walking trought the air. "And that Mephisto knows well." Added the cat purring, before vanishing, leaving his smile hanging in the air for a couple of seconds.

"Well that was… strange…" muttered Applejack. "This place is full of madness." She grunted, before returning her attention to Twilight. "Come on, let's head back."

"Ok…" murmured the unicorn, rubbing one of her eyes. "Do you remember the way…?"

"Ah thought you were the one with the good memory!"

-oOo-

"I think we are lost." Commented the unicorn, as she looked at how the walls around them were turning from smooth black stone to metallic plates. Applejack nodded, examining the various air ducts, pipes and tubes that passed throught the ceiling. A lot of fancy stuff, from her point of view, but after all she was no egghead, so maybe all those things served some purpose.

"Ah don't know why, but Ah think you are right, Twi." She muttered, as they passed a series of metallic doors. "Ain't this the place we passed when Noxfero dragged us in our rooms?"

"You are right! We're probably in the dungeons!" exclaimed the suddenly excited unicorn. "I remember that that scarecrow, Pumpkinhead, works here. Maybe we can ask him how the portal is going." She said, before start to trot. Applejack wasn't sure that the strange scarecrow would appreciate the visit, but anyway Twilight was already on her way. The orange mare sighed, and followed her friend.

-oOo-

Pumpkinhead glared carefully at the shimmering bar of golden material he was grasping with a long tongs. He carefully moved towards a titanium box, walking slowly, scared of letting his grasp loosen on the tongs. He had to be careful…

"Hello Mr. Pumpkinhead!" chirped a voice behind him. The scarecrow gasped and almost let the pin fall on the ground. He regained his grasp and turned towards the interrupters: the purple unicorn that had made his master angry as soon as he had returned through the portal, and the orange one with the stetson.

"What are you two doing here? I said to the master that you have to stay away from my lab." He stated, returning his attention on his task. The look on Twilight's face was slightly hurt, but the mare didn't leave. The orange one was a few feet away, looking with fascination at a transparent tube full of orange goo that ran along the wall.

"We were on our way back from the library…"

"You are quite far away from the library."

"We got lost." Finished the mare, slightly annoyed. "What is that thing?" she asked then, pointing a hoof towards the shimmering bar that the scarecrow was carrying.

"Radioactive material." Answered Pumpkinhead, curving his carved mouth in a smirk when he saw the face of the mare. "But it's extremely diluted."

"So…so it's safe…?"

"Yes, it's safe." He grunted, than gave another look at the couple of mares. "You two didn't have any intention of having kids in your lifetime, right?"

The mares blinked in confusion, as the scarecrow chuckled and put the shining bar inside the titanium box, before sealing it.

"So, what can I do for you two?" he asked, taking off his goggles and turning his carved face towards the mares. Twilight still had to decide whether a talking pumpkin was creepy or extremely funny.

"We… I wanted to see how were you doing with the portal." Muttered the unicorn, as Applejack moved her attention to a series of glass jars containing different samples of plants.

"Working on it. The worst part, of course, is replacing the internal energy system with something else, and also finding a new source of energy." Muttered the scarecrow. He actually had placed the repairs of the portal at the bottom of his to-do list, but at least he had already made a checkup on the rest of the machine.

"And… do you think it'll be long?" asked the unicorn, rubbing a hoof on the ground. "You know, since Nox will help us save our princess, we should leave as soon as possible to not make him worry." She said, giving a little smile. This time even Applejack turned her head towards her friend, smiling: apparently she was finally getting it.

"I'll do what I can. I'm just a human, after all. Dead, but still human." Grumbled the scarecrow. "But the point now is just repairing the machine. If the goal is a quick passage, just a little bit of master's power will be sufficien." He commented, before opening another door and entering another room. Twilight quickly followed him, while Applejack strayed a little, examining the titanium box.

Fancy stuff.

And the next room was the same for her: a series of tubes running along the ceiling, cables scattered over the ground, and a series of tables filled with chemicals. The scarecrow was moving between them, closely followed by the unicorn.

"Don't you have anything better to do?" he finally snapped, when the unicorn innocently raised on her hindlegs, to continue to watch him as he mixed a couple of substances. "Like do something with your friends? This is important stuff."

"But I like to see! This is interesting!" whined slightly the unicorn.

"I highly doubt your equine brain can understand what am I doing."

"Well, why don't you test it?" growled the mare, frowning. if there was one thing she wouldn't accept, it was being called stupid.

The earth pony mare smirked, as the unicorn and the scarecrow began to chatter about science. She sighed, while continuing to look around. She felt a little out of place, but all in all, she was happy that Twilight had finally calmed her mind. Applejack tapped her head and continued to snoop around, looking at all the scientific stuff scattered around.

As she leaned up to look at a little pumping heart immersed in a jar full of pink liquid, she felt a sudden chill run down her spine. She turned her head, trying to find the origin of that feeling: she get a quick glimpse of a tall and slim humanoid figure in a black suit, motionless behind the semi closed door, before it disappeared in a blink.

-oOo-

"So?" asked Junior, waving slightly his feet slightly above his bed. The tall faceless creature tilted its head a little, before his voice sounded in the room.

"The orange one and the purple one are in the laboratories. Apparently they found a way to keep Pumpkinhead occupied. The white one and the yellowish one are in your father's room, being entartained by Sasha, as well as the cyan one."

"The pink one?" asked the little devil, emitting an involuntary little growl.

"She is in the room as well, listening to Sasha. Cuddling with your father." Stated bluntly the Slenderman. Junior's eyes widened in surprise.

"Excuse me? Cuddling?"

"He was petting her mane while holding her. I assume that enters in the definition."

"Ok, that's it!" growled the little devil, jumping to the ground. "That's fucking unbelievable! How is this even possible?! They are fucking horses! And they do not even belong here! So why in the name of Cthulhu, does he prefer them to me!?" nearly shouted the little devil, punching the black wall, causing a crack. The Slenderman didn't answer. "I try to always do my best to please him and he just ignores me!"

"Maybe… you are just doing something in a field he's not interested in the moment…" finally muttered the faceless creature. "Maybe you should try doing something about these creatures…"

"Hell no, they have something that shakes the chaotic half of my DNA." Hissed the iny devil, before he scratched his chin, frowning even more. "Dad said Mephisto captured one of those creatures, right?" he finally asked. The creature slowly nodded.

"Then, this is easy." Stated the little devil, moving towards the only window of the room, giving a glance to the scarlet sky, as six black tentacles darted out from his back, waving slowly in the air. "We just have to rescue that pathetic pony."


	8. Rescue

The little devil walked angrily out of his room, his slim servant following silently, heading down the obsidian stairs of his tower.

"You take me to Mephisto's level, then I'll get the thing those ponies are trying to save and bring it here." He stated blankly, skipping the steps as he descended.

"Don't you want to have me with you inside Mephistopheles' castle?" asked the faceles humanoid, sliding silently behind his master.

"You kinda stand out." hissed the little devil, as they entered into a corridor and started to follow it, moving towards the scarlet and purple door at the end of it. "And, no offense, that may be a little too much for you."

"Master.." started the Slenderman, straightening. "I was created and born in the void between worlds. In the darkness where the madness is formed, where the nightmares are crafted and where no mortal can mantain his sanity! The castle of the archdevil of wrath isn't…"

"Oh, hush you!" hissed Junior, opening the door and continuing into the next corridor. "You are born on the Internet."

"Uh…Yeah, what did I just say?" asked the faceless creature, scratching his bald head. The little devil rolled his eyes, as he continued hs run. He passed in front of his father's room without even stopping, letting out an angry hiss as the foul smell of… good things flew out of it. He dropped to all fours and continued his run, descending another couple of stairs, still followed by the other.

"And I need you to stay outside in case I get caught, to tell father about it." he hissed, before starting to run down the dungeon's stairs. With a single push from him, he opened the metallic door, entering the main room of Pumpkinhead's laboratory. The scarecrow was working on the metallic frame of the portal, and barely saw the little creature storming inside the laboratory, grabbing a scarlet bottle from a shelf, and then disappear again.

The scarecrow blinked, before returning to his work.

"Here. I'm ready." Hissed the little devil, stepping up beside his servant. "Do it." He ordered, glaring at the tall man. The faceless creature sighed from…somewhere… before lowering and grabbing the little devil.

And a second later, they weren't there anymore.

They were on the edge of an immense cliff: below them was a sea of bubbling, flowing magma, while in front of them, the Bronze Citadel was happily shining in the reflected light.

Surely, Mephisto enjoyed quite a few more centuries to transform his castle into the enormous and hulking citadel that was now. But the good thing about a citadel like that, was that there were going to be a whole lot of sewers and dirty passages where a little and sneaky demon could pass.

"Wait for me here." Junior ordered, jumping off his servant, and staring at the magma. "I'll be the quickest I can."

"You'll take at least an half an hour to find the castle. And only the chaos knows how much long will you take to find what are you searching for." Groaned the faceless creature, falling on the ground and sitting there, crossing his long legs.

"Yeah, you are right." Agreed the little devil, crouching, ready to jump off the cliff. "But look on the bright side: following the theory of the multiverse, in another dimension this is just the stupid fiction of a loser, and he will cut my boring search to another scene right now."

-oOo-

"So… how is she doing?" asked Mephistopheles, looking from above a platform at the weak body of the alicorn below him, as the skeleton examined it as well. Barely a day had passed, but the creature was just a shadow of the one he had captured in her world.

The body was quite thinner, the wings were dangling lifelessly on the metallic floor where the creature was laying, a series of syringes and tubes emerging from them. The mane and tail were scattered lifelessly over the ground, the tones of the colors dakened. She was unconscious, her mouth murmuring something.

"She's blabbering a lot about a Luna, Twilight, kingdom and other stuff." Stated the skeleton. "But anyway, we have stored some energy away, she'll be broken soon."

"Excellent… then we can move on to the corruption of the soul, and will soon have a new toy-soldier in our hands…" chuckled the scarlet devil, before exploding in thik evil laughter.

And his evil laughter lasted half an hour.

"Shall I postpone your lunch, master?" asked the skeleton after a couple of minutes.

"Thank you." Answered the archdevil between his laughter, opening the door and walking away still laughing, followed by his minion.

The room returned to silence as soon as the scarlet doors closed behind them. The only noise now came from the different beeping machines that covered the wall, as well from the tubes attached to the creature restrained to the ground.

The mare tilted her head a little, babbling something incoherent, as the pain continued to numb her senses. She didn't have any idea of where she was anymore, the last few hours had been marked only by a continuous rising of pain. She was sure she was hallucinating, her mind unable to form a straight thought, like if she was the victim of some sort of strong fever.

She barely heard the two creatures talking above her, as the machines continued to plague her body, draining her magic out and injecting some sort of… substance… into her veins. She wasn't sure about what it was, but she knew that burned like the sun inside her veins.

She was trying to resist the pain and to maintain a hold on her thoughts, so much that she didn't hear the sound of a metallic grate being torn off, nor the sound of something little dropping on the hot floor, somewhere near her. But her ears raised as she heard an angry grumbling near her.

"Damned sewer rats… it would help if they weren't big as fucking cars…" the voice was grumbling, nearing her. She tried to turn her head and open her eyes, succeeding only in one of the two actions: she opened her sore and bloodshot eyes, trying to see who had arrived.

"Let's see, let's see…" murmured the new voice, as a little creature entered into Celestia's field of view. Her first impression was that of a shrunken Noxfero. It was a quite similar creature in appearance, except for the lack of nose, bat-wing shaped ears and the frown on his face. And almost a meter and half of height difference.

The little creature examined the machine that was connected to the alicorn's wings, before cautiously taking one of the tubes and slowly extracting it. Celestia let out a scream of pain and tried to move due to the pain, but her body was so weak that she just barely raised a hoof a few inches.

"Shut up, you damned horse!" hissed the little devil, glaring at the mare as he finally extracted a two inch long needle from the alicorn's wing. He then moved to another, ignoring the wail of pain of the princess. He continued mercilessly, extracting needle after needle from Celestia's flesh, tossing them on the ground.

After a few minutes of wailing, the princess closed her eyes again, her wings two masses of pain. She heard the sound of the last needle hit the ground with a tingling noise, as the little creature studied her wings.

"Look at this… man, you're lucky that I got here in time…" he murmured casually, before walking around the alicorn and starting to extract the needles from her spine. The princess' eyes opened again as a new wave of pain hit her. She gave a quick glance tp her motionless wings, before immediately looking away, disgusted: a dense, gooey brownish substance with a strong gas smell was pouring out from the needle marks.

"Ok, and with this, we are ok." Hissed finally the little creature, after another couple of minutes, tossing to the ground the last tubes. Celestia let out a sigh of relief. Even if the pain was enormous, it was quite far from the one she had felt with all those… things attached to her body. She opened again her eyes, just to find the creature in front of her, studying her with his frowning eyes.

"Thank…you…" she murmured, placing her head on the ground, while the pain passed from acute stings to a more deep, pounding pain. The little creature tilted his head a little.

"Ok, now I'm certain you are of the same race as the six pests that have invaded my father's castle. You are naive as them." he finally declared, taking a few steps towards the mare, as he pulled out a bottle full of scarlet liquid from his little raincoat.

"Six…?" muttered the mare, trying to understand. Her head was pounding, but she was less confused than before.

"Yeah, six little naive pony-like creatures, that I understand have come from a different plane of existence to try to save your ass." stated the devil. "Quite the cracker. But at least, as soon as you are safe, they'll stop spreading nonsense around."

"Twilight… the Elements, they…" began Celestia, before the little creature forcefully pressed the bottle to her mouth, letting the scarlet liquid flow out. The alicorn immediately tried to free herself: it was a bitter, burning liquid, that pinched her esophagus like as she was drinking nettles and cactus thorns.

"Stay put, damned animal…" hissed the little devil, trying to keep Celestia's head still with his other arm, while from his back darted out a tentacle that tangled itself around Celestia's neck, beginning to massage her throat, trying to force her to swallow.

After a few seconds of struggle, Celestia finally gave up, swallowing the bitter liquid. She immediately felt her stomach go upside down, as it contracted. The little creature moved aside, keeping the alicorn's head raised, as she threw up, vomiting black ichor on the ground.

Junior waited patiently, as the alicorn expelled all the stuff that the machine had injected into her body. Her struggle lasted for a couple of minutes, that he passed watching blankly as the white alicorn threw up every bit of evil rubbish she had inside of her.

"And with that, you are clean." He declared, as the alicorn finally stopped throwing up. She panted, as she gave out another couple of empty retches. The little creature walked again towards her, avoiding the pools of black vomit on the floor, as six tentacles emerged from his back and two of them started to wrap around Celestia, lifting her. "So, you are not going to turn into a half demon along the way. I can take you to my father then." He stated. The alicorn emitted a moan of pain, as her body twitched. "Noxfero." Explained the little devil, as his last four tentacles raised him into the air, acting like legs. There were no way that his little legs could carry the floppy body of the mare.

He turned and looked at the duct where he had emerged from. He blinked a couple of times, as he tried to push the mare into a hole big a third the size of the mare.

"This may take a while…" he grunted, as another two tentacles started to tear apart the duct, enlarging the opening. Celestia opened her eyes, watching the scene.

"Why…?" she murmured.

"Why did all this happen?" asked the little devil, tearing apart a plate of metal. "Because to devils, pure souls like yours are one of the most wanted rewards." He stated, as the foul smell of the alicorn's soul arrived to him. He restrained a gag, as he pushed himself into the duct and began to run down it using his tentacles, as he held Celestia in front of him.

"Now, we just have to crawl out of here…" he muttered, as his tentacles dragged him around a turn. The duct was half full of a green slimy substance, sliding silently around the little devil. He snarled, as the foul stench suffocated his senses. He could barely sniff the horse's smell now. Not a big deal, though.

The big deal was that the horse wasn't exactly prepared for the smell, and started coughing as soon as they moved deeper into the duct.

"Hold it!" hissed Junior, continuing to move. "We are not even in the sewer system!" he added angrily, as he peeked over his shoulder at the sound of rustling behind him. "Damnit!" The mare didn't react, continuing her coughing. He increased his speed, as he heard screams and growls behind him, as a group of three black, flaming demons turned a corner and spotted him, starting to chase the little devil, hissing and baring their long sharp theet.

"Demons…?" asked the mare, one of her ears flicking, trying to turn her head a little. "Can't you ask them to stop…?" she asked. The little devil rolled his eyes. Naive.

"No I can't. They will be glad to dismember me as they'll rape and eat you alive at the same time." he answered, his tentacles moving quickly, his eyes darting around the duct, searching for the drop into the sewers. One of their chasers jumped over him, just to be grabbed by one of the tentacles: it swiftly broke its neck, turning the black devil, too a pile of ash.

"Why…? Aren't you a devil to…?" asked again the alicorn. Junior was starting to get pissed by the continue blabbering of the horse, but decided to continue to talk, just to make sure that the horse was still alive.

"I'm not entirely a devil. And now, I'm an intruder, stealing one of Mephisto's prisoners. So, they don't really have any reason to be friendly." He said, as behind him, two creatures attacked one of the tentacles he was using to move, mauling it with their fangs. His face didn't change, as he got rid of them with another tentacle. At the same time, he spotted the drop for the sewers. Without even thinking about it, he jumped down.

The drop was all but pleasant, as he landed in the pile of demonic rats he had slaughtered while leaving. He snarled and jumped out, still moving by his tentacles. The alicorn emitted a little wail of pain as she was raised again in the air, far away from the dense water stained with blood and other garbage flowing into the underground canal.

Junior growled even more when he heard, far above him, the sound of a siren. They had found out that the horse wasn't there anymore. He sped up, ignoring the chomps of the rats dragged out by the sound of him moving through the low water and the blood pouring out of the mare. His eyes narrowed, as he saw the end of the tunnel, lit by the light of the boiling magma below it.

He paled. He didn't have any problem with swimming in the magma, but he doubted that these horses were fireproof. He cursed himself, but didn't stop. He had at last three rats chewing on his tentacles, and a few feet behind, at least five lesser devils were chasing him.

"Damn you horses!" he roared, as he arrived at the end of the tunnel and jumped into the air, dragging with himself the rats attached to his tentacles and a couple of devils stupid enough to jump after him.

"Slender!" he called, as he fell. Two seconds, and he would have tested if the alicorn was fireproof. But since she was pathetically opening her wings in an effort to slow down the fall, he suspected she wasn't. He was starting to curse his stupidity, when his faceless bulear appeared in front of him, placing a hand on the little devil's head.

And then, they weren't there anymore.

They were inside one of the dark corridors of the castle. Junior panted, as he retracted the four tentacles he had used to run. He made a motion to the faceless creature, gesturing for him to stay out, and then stumbled towards Noxfero's door. He could hear sounds of laughter, the idiotic voice of Jaco and the annoying sound of those… damned horses. Fuck that.

He slammed the door open and walked in. He felt the eyes of all present on him. He didn't care. He lowered the panting body of the alicorn, retracting his tentacles inside his back, keeping his eyes on his father's.

"She's alive." He stated, coldly. Noxfero blinked, moving his scarlet eyes between the alicorn and his son, as well as all the other mares. Jaco was astonished as well, half a pizza stuck in his mouth. Sasha was the first to react: she slid to the ground and placed her hand on the alicorn's neck.

"She is." Agreed the vampire. "Master, I need a hand. Help me take her to the medical bay."

"We have a medical bay?" asked both Noxfero and Jaco. The vampire sighed and rolled her eyes.

"Yes, we do. Come on now!" she snapped. The devil immediately left Pinkie and rushed towards the vampire. He stopped a second beside Junior and scruffed the little devil's hairs.

"Well done wimp." He whispered, before grasping Celestia and lifting her, helped by a set of tendrils of shadows. Sasha opened the door, and both disappeared into the darkness of the corridor. Junior stared at the door a little, ignoring the murmuring of the mares around him, staring blankly at the door.

That went better than expected.

At least, until the purple mare snuck behind him and hugged him with her forelegs.

"Thank you Junior…" she murmured, snuggling her muzzle in the devil's cheek, ignoring the growl that he was emitting.

"Group hug!" cheered Jaco, jumping as well on Junior, followed by the other mares (Rainbow dragged Pinkie Pie). After a few seconds, the little devil found himself crushed in a rib-crushing hug, as the mares thanked him for saving "Princess Celestia".

"Whatever…" he muttered, trying to free himself, to no avail.

-oOo-

"She disappeared master!" stated the skeleton, saluting Mephistopheles, as the scarlet devil glared at the room where the alicorn had been imprisoned not more than an hour before. He shrugged.

"Doesn't matter very much. She was just a toy, after all. The… secret weapon?" he asked, turning slightly towards his companion.

"The chaos creature? Oh, we are doing good. Really close to freeing it."

"Excellent…" he chuckled. "With that, finally, my master plan will be fulfilled, and I will get my rightful place as king of Hell!" he roared before starting to laugh.

And his laughter lasted thirty seconds.

"Sir?" asked the skeleton

"Got to go to the bathroom." Called Mephisto, running away.


	9. Planning and plotting

"So… what do you all think about this?" asked Sasha, sipping from cup of thick scarlet blood, while looking at her colleagues: Esper raised his eyes from the bone he was gnawing on, looking the vampire, as did Zira, raising her face from a bowl full of roasted robins.

"What do you mean?" asked the werewolf, scratching a tooth with a dirty nail, freeing a piece of meat.

"I'm talking about the ponies. And the boss." Retorted the vampire, taking another sip, letting her eyes wander rapidly around the kitchen, in case any shadows were suspiciously Noxfero-shaped. "I mean, it's not something I would have expected…"

"They are a nuisance." Commented Pumpkinhead from the other side of the table, gulping down his cup full of sawdust. "They don't belong here. As soon as the portal is ready, I hope master kicks them out." he added, tapping his chin. Esper growled, nodding.

"Their smell confounds my nose. And their voices pierce my ears. And I can't even chase them and hunt them… they are useless."

"I found them quite nice, on the other hand." Purred Zira, glaring at the werewolf with her feline eyes. "It's pleasant to have around something that's not a sweaty brute or a geek." She added, with a slight smirk.

"Of course you do, pussy cat!" growled Esper, showing his fangs. "I couldn't expect anything different from a cat without spine."

"Shut your maw, stray dog, or some flies might enter." Hissed the woman, curving her back. The two glared at each other, before returning their attention to the vampire, as soon as she let out a faint cough.

"If you two stop acting like cat and dog…" she started, staring at them menacingly. "…I'd like to talk about our guests… more precisely, about the master is reacting to them…"

"You noticed that too uh?" asked the scarecrow, lowering his cup. "My guess is that he's mind controlled."

"That's stupid. No one has the power to control an archdevil." Snarled Esper. The scarecrow shrugged.

"We don't know anything about that place. Maybe those… ponies… have the power…"

"If so, they would have gotten rid of Mephisto immediately. No, I'm thinking that maybe… I don't know… I mean, the fact that he lets them sleep with him, he laughs with them, and generally is in a better mood…"

"Maybe… you know, he has some strange fetish…" started the scarecrow. "After all, he's a devil."

"Those are horses Pumpkinhead, and the master has his rules on the matter." Snarled Zira, scratching the table with her nails.

"Well, you are a panther-witch and Sasha is a corpse, but I don't remember that stopping him when he was in the mood." Growled the scarecrow. The vampire said nothing, thinking for a few seconds, the arguing between the witch and the scarecrow a low echo in her ears.

"I think that something happened in that other dimension. Something that we cannot understand." Stated a cold voice behind them. Pumpkinhead splurted out his sawdust, as the Slenderman stepped out of the shadows, a tea pot in his hands. stayed motionless as the vampire started to choke on the blood and the werewolf fell back from his seat, swearing. "Clearly something happened." The abomination continued, ignoring the reactions. "Something that we can't fully understand, due to our own nature. But pray tell me vampire… why do you care?" he then asked, looking at Sasha. The vampire opened her mouth…

The kitchen door swung open, as Noxfero and the orange mare entered into the room, the devil yawning and the mare rubbing her sore eyes. The Slenderman immediately disappeared, while the others tried to act like normal.

"Morning master! Up early, I see." Exclaimed Esper, with a voice quite more high pitched than usual. The devil gave him a glance, before yawning again.

"Yup… having Dash snoring like crazy a few inches from your ears tends to wake you up…" he grumbled, sitting at the table, while a few tentacles of shadow started to rustle around the stoves.

"Dash?" whispered the werewolf.

"The cyan one." Was the hushed answer of the scarecrow. Applejack looked at them for a moment, before yawning and sitting beside the devil.

"How is the princess?" she asked to the vampire, who shrugged, finishing her cup of blood.

"She's stable, but I don't know when she'll be conscious again. With a bit of luck, she may wake up today." She finally stated.

"That's fine… I was actually thinking of calling Daelus and Belzebù." Muttered Noxfero, while one of his shadows opened a cupboard and punched Jaco, who was sleeping inside on a pile of plates. "Since Mephisto still has the portal, I want to be sure to get rid of him before sending all of you home."

"Well… anyway, I think I'll return to the fixing." muttered the scarecrow, as the door opened again and another three ponies entered the room: the purple one, the yellowish one and the pink one, carried by the butter coated pegasus on her back.

"And I think I'll return to the prison." Added Esper, dropping to all fours and darting away.

"I somehow have the sensation you four don't like them very much." Said Noxfero, addressing Sasha and Zira, while pointing at the ponies, who shared some glances.

"I'm a big man! I can't like little ponies!" grunted Zira, in a good imitation of Esper's voice. "I'm a big bad wolf!" she finished her impression, as Noxfero giggled and Sasha snorted, trying to hold back a laugh. "You know him."

"I suppose so…" agreed the devil.

"Of course he knows, he was the same not more than a year ago!" noted Jaco, finally waking up from the punches of the shadows. "Hello girls."

"Hello…" muttered Fluttershy, as Applejack tipped her hat. "You… you always sleep in the cupboard?"

"Sometimes in the oven, if I'm cold!" said happily the little demon, starting to light up a fire on the stove, while grasping a big, metallic pot. "I'll make you something asap."

"For me just a coffee… I want to go to see the princess." Stated Twilight. "can I?" she immediately asked to the vampire, who nodded in response.

"She's still sleeping, but I see no harm in letting you in."

"Ah think we should all go there… to let her know we are with her, even if she's not awake…" muttered the orange mare, receiving some nods from her friends. "And when she wakes up, she'll see some friendly faces around. Ah know that's something I would like to see."

"I think… that will surely be nice…" murmured Fluttershy. "She was really hurt… she may be happy to see us…"

"Or furious because you followed her into a place not suited for you all." snarled the devil, glaring at them. Twilight rose her eyes, looking at the ceiling, while Applejack began to awkwardly whistle.

The devil emitted a low laugh of glee, before looking at Sasha.

"Take them with you. The princess deserves to have them around." He stated. "And bring Jaco as well."

"Do you think that his humor and presence may lighten up the mood?" asked the vampire, standing up and gesturing at the mares to come with her.

"Maybe. I just don't want to have him around." Grunted the devil.

"He's right! I wouldn't want to have something like me around either." Agreed the little devil, pouring some gooey black cofee . "We should go wake up also Rarity and Rainbow as well, though." He finished, tossing the cup in the air, which Twilight caught with her magic.

"Yep, we should wake them…" she agreed, taking a sip, and giving a glance to Fluttershy and Applejack. They shared a glance as well, before standing up and following the little devil, as he carried the coffee pot on his head, rushing out the kitchen.

Leaving Pinkie Pie on the chair where Fluttershy had just dumped her.

Sasha and Zira looked in silence as the pink pony and the devil looked at each other, in silence.

"How are your hooves?" asked the devil after a few seconds, pointy tail moving slighty as he pointed at the mare's bandaged legs.

"They sting a little…" was the answer of the mare. An awkward silence filled the kitchen, as the two looked at each other. After the argument the previous day, they had avoided speaking about it, due to the other ponies' presence.

"I'm sorry for shouting at you yesterday… he was a bad guy that one, right? You told me you punish only bad guys… I reacted without thinking…" murmured the mare. Noxfero's eyes sparkled.

"It's ok, you did what you thought was right."

"Thank you Noxy…"

"But I'm still mad that you and Rainbow left here, even after told you not to." Added the devil, crossing his arms. The mare lowered her eyes in shame. The devil stared at her for a couple of seconds, before sighing and walking to her, before grasping the mare around her waist and lifting, holding her to his body. The mare blinked, but then she grasped the devil's shoulder with her bandaged hooves, smiling.

"Come on, let's go with the others." grunted the devil, feeling the smooth mane brushing against his face. Then his attention was attracted by the vampire and the witch, both looking at him with enormous, sparkling eyes, and their mouths opened in a 'D'awww' expression. "Go back to work you two." He hissed, his face turning a deep shade of gray.

"Ok then, I'll come with you two to the medical bay." smirked the vampire, floating in mid-air and up beside him, floating a few inches away, staring at him with her knowing smirk. Noxfero growled a little before being shut up by Pinkie's mane as it scratched his nose.

"Well… fine then… fantastic… Zira, be a dear, and contact Daelus for me. Tell him I need to talk to him." he ordered, his voice trembling a little. The witch gave a smirk as well, before grasping a last bite of bird from her plate and leaping away, morphing into her panther form.

"We can also check your wounds Pinkie, as soon as we arrive in the medical bay." Proposed the vampire, as the devil turned and started to walk out the kitchen.

"That might be nice! They burn a little bit, other than stinging." asnwered happily the mare, suddenly back to her happy and cheerful self.

"We can check on them." Said the vampire, nodding. "I'm sure your friends won't have anything to say if you aren't immediately around your princess' bed."

"That's right!"

"And also, with Noxfero holding your hooves, they'll be sure you are safe." she added in a silky tone, causing another wave of gray over the devil face.

-oOo-

"There, all better." Cooed the vampire, finishing wrapping the new bandages around Pinkie's hooves. "But still, don't walk on your own. But for that, I'm sure Noxfero would gladly carry you." She added with a smirk.

"That would be nice. No offense Pinkie, but ya're a little heavy." Called Applejack from two beds down, sipping her cup of coffee.

"None taken!" cheered the pink pony, before raising her hooves towards the devil, who huffed and grasped her again, carrying the pink mare towards the others, who were having a full breakfast just beside the bed where the princess was sleeping.

"At least now you can just stay sitting in here until she wakes up." grunted Noxfero, as Jaco took out a croissant from the cofee mug.

"That will be boring!"

"You are still grounded Rainbow. So you better prepare yourself for some boring times." snarled the devil, before grasping the croissant with his tongue and gulping it down. "So, I'm going to assume that you six are going to stay here, And I'm going assume that this time Sasha is not going to let some of you go out." he added, glaring slightly at the vampire, who immediately nodded.

"And where are you going?" asked Rarity, raising an eyebrow. "Are you going to leave us alone again?"

"Well… yes. I have work to do, you know?" asked the devil, rolling his eyes. "You'll have to pass the time with Sasha and Jaco. Or just stare hopefully at Celestia, hoping she'll wake up. I'm actually in charge here, so people expect I do stuff."

"Such pretentious people." Said seriously Jaco, nodding. The devil slapped him with his tail, before standing up, scruffling Pinkie's mane and walking out, his raincoat swirling behind him.

"When he says work, usually he means ordering around other devils to do stuff for him." Explained the little devil, taking his cup of coffee and starting to sip it, before spitting out the bitter liquid and cleaning his oversized tongue.

"Well… not precisely." Whispered Sasha, floating above the group. "The ministry of Envy is in charge of the relationship with the external worlds: Heaven, Purgatory, mortal world, and the chaotic void. It's not an easy job, considering Noxfero also has to advertise for Hell in the mortal realm."

"Advertise?" was Rarity's question, as the mare raised an eyebrow. Of everything, that was the last thing she would have expected to hear.

"Well, of course. Understandably, in the mortal world, hell is not really smiled upon. So Noxfero's job is to… 'suggest' to the mortals that hell's a place where even humans can be someone. I mean, he's a perfect example of this as well. When he was alive, he was weak and pathetic. But after he ki-"

The vampire stopped, as she saw Pinkie's expression. Her eyes were large as plates, and was violently shaking her head, making cutting motions in front of her neck with her hoof. The vampire got the message and corrected her sentence.

"…After he died, he ended up becoming one of the most powerful creatures in the underworld. Nothing better than him to represent what a single mortal soul can become, down here." She concluded, rolling slowly in the air.

"I'm the other side of the coin." Cheered Jaco, taking out a carrot and starting to dip it in a new cup that was filled with tea.

"Well… Ah suppose that makes sense…" muttered Applejack. "But that doesn't imply telling people to be bad? Nox always said only bad people end up here."

"Well… yes." Agreed the vampire, scratching her head. After all, tempting mortals had always been the devils' first job. Since the first generation of archdevils, even. She remembered the good times, when she was just a couple of hundred years old, during the dark ages, when devils were most feared. She actually remembered how they had offered their help to the creatures of the night, like the vampires, to spread chaos and destruction throughout the world, arriving at its summit with the two great plagues in Europe, that had killed a whole lot of souls, and drove others into becoming like animals and assassins.

Good times, good times. Still when Lucifer (or rather, Satan, at that point) had a fit of rage against the bearded man in the sky, after a few millennia of mourning and depression, after being kicked out of Heaven... the vampire sighed, unaware of the stares that the mares were giving her, slightly concerned by her dreamy expression.

-oOo-

"Good day Master! There is a little problem in the pools of despair: apparently the bodies blocked the draining system, and the acid is starting to rise a teensy bit too high for safety standards…"

"Well, poke away the bodies! We have pitchforks, don't we?" snarled the archdevil, shoving away the little floating fly-like demon, as he continued to walk down the corridor of the castle. The ponies, of course, had seen only the living quarters of the immense castle, and had missed all the corridors that spread away from the center, like a spider's web, permitting a complete freedom of movement around the entire realm of Envy. The castle was like the black, corrupted heart, and the hundreds of corridors its veins, pumping streams of devils all throughout every sector.

The archdevil continued to walk down the large corridor, striding over the soft, white seal's skin rug that filled its center. Groups of devils swarmed around him, both to greet him with their forked tongues in the hopes of some kind of appreciation, while others just tried to do their jobs, letting him know of everything that was going on in his domain.

He was quite happy about the fact that the second group was far larger than the first one. Usually the new devils were the ones trying to obtain some favours with servility. But they learned quickly. At least, the ones that end up torn to bloody pieces.

"Master, we have a fire spreading in the wood of blades!"

"Use the heavy rain to put it out."

"But the drowning souls…"

"They will be poured down with the water."

"Clever, sir!" exclaimed the little devil, trotting away on his three legs.

"We have an ambassador from Lord Mammon, Master. He's asking about the bath of souls that he was expecting. He also asked if you intend to give some extra for the delay."

"That greedy bastard… ok ok, give him what he wants." Snarled the devil, waving his hand and accelerating.

"Master…"

"What?!" almost screamed the devil, turning. Zira was taken aback, curving her back and hissing, before remembering where she was.

"I… uh…" she murmured, blushing and straightening up. It was always awkward when her feline instincts kicked in.

"I told you to call Daelus."

"I did!" she retorted, raising an earphone. "He's on right now." She explained. The devil smiled slightly and grasped the black, contorted earphone.

"Daelus?"

"It's my name…" answered the lazy voice on the other side. "'Sup Nox? Do you need something?"

"Actually, yes…" whispered the devil, lowering his tone and covering his mouth with a hand, glaring around. "Do you remember when you asked me why I seemed to be happier?"

"Yes, I did… so?"

"So… I want to tell you what it is…"

"Nox… it's like what? Eight in the morning…"

"In Hawaii it's eight in the evening."

"Don't try that with me Nox… I just woke up."

"But this is really important. I need for you and Belze to see this! It may be our only chance to finally frame Mephistopheles." Begged the archdevil of Envy, his tail wiggling nervously.

"This might be interesting… but it might also wait a few hours…" came out the grumpy voice of Daelus after a few moments.

"Please Daelus, there are those ponies' lives on the line and-" almost screamed the devil, but stopped when he felt the line go dead. After two seconds, the corridor's wall exploded in a shower of black bricks and dust. A few devils jumped away screaming, while others totally ignored the fact.

The enormous body of the archdevil known as Daelus dusted off the fur on his shoulders, a few electric sparks dancing around him, before he walked into the corridor, looking at Noxfero.

"So, what are we waiting for? We should move." He said, smiling slightly. Noxfero smirked, before briefly turning towards Zira.

"Please, be a dear again and fix that wall." He asked, before starting to walk back towards the main body of the castle, followed by the longer and slower steps of the enormous devil.

"I still have to figure out one thing, Daelus. You are supposed to be the Archdevil of Sloth. So, why, in the name of all the flying blue bananas, is your correlated element lightning?"

-oOo-

Celestia's ears flicked, as she started to emerge from the deep sleep she had fallen into, a few seconds after the little creature that had saved her jumped towards a sea of lava. Now, she wasn't sure how it felt to land in lava. But she was pretty sure it wasn't as comfortable as this felt.

And she definitely didn't feel like she was burning. Actually, her sore muscles where singing with how relaxed they finally were, resting on this soft surface. The only thing that was hurting now came from a stinging pain in one of her wings.

She opened one eye slightly, and was greeted by a dim light coming from a bright bar encased in the ceiling. The second thing she noted were the couple of purple eyes staring at her. She had just realized that the murmurs she could hear were actually familiar voices, when the owner of the eyes suddenly hugged her, almost crushing her windpipe.

"Princess! You are awake!" screamed Twilight, almost strangling Celestia.

"Ok Twilight, you are happy, we can see that…" snickered the vampire, trying to pull away the unicorn from the white alicorn's neck, to no avail. "But it's better if you let her go."

"Yep. Even if is funny to watch her face turning blue, that's not a color that suits Celestia very well." Added Jaco, watching how Celestia's face was indeed becoming a darker tone, due to the lack of oxygen. Twilight immediately let her go, placing herself on her seat again, her eyes sparkling.

"Princess, you are ok… that's a relief…" huffed Fluttershy, feeling the tension fade away from her heart.

"Of course she's ok. She's the princess!" grinned Rainbow Dash. "She's too cool to not be ok."

Tha alicorn blinked, letting her eyes pass over the six mares' faces, all of them safe, all of them happy to see her, all of them…

"What are you six doing here?" she asked with a light frown on her muzzle. She noted with the tail of her eye the red maned humanoid floating near one of her wings, checking on a needle that was injecting some clean looking liquid inside her.

"Well we… we're here… to rescue you, princess!" exclaimed Twilight, flushing a little. "Even if… I have to admit, it was mostly my idea…and I got carried away a little…" she admitted, looking at the floor.

"And now they are all stuck here, passing their days being annoyed and also making us worried!" exclaimed Jaco, taking out another croissant from the coffee mug. "Hi Celly. Do you want something to eat?"

"She's not going to eat anything…" muttered Sasha. "Not until I say so."

"Oh come on…" muttered Jaco, lowering his gaze, depressed. The vampire rolled her eyes, before floating back behind the ponies, deciding to give them space to speak with their ruler. Since she was the reason why they where there in the first place, she thought it was quite important they had the chance to talk.

"Twilight please, explain to me what's going on… I'm having a little bit of… confusion, at the moment." Murmured Celestia, lowering her head and placing it on her pillow, closing her eyes. She had to get a clear picture of the situation.

"Well… from what Noxfero told us, one of his fellows archdevils attacked our world, for still unknown reasons..." started Twilight, straightening up and assuming her composed and know-it-all attitude. "He proceeded to capture you and held you captive. Acting on instinct, we managed to follow Noxfero in his homeworld… and well, that's the whole story, basically."

"Ah'm sure Nox will just tell us what's going to happen now. He owes us some explanation, after all." snorted Applejack.

"I'm sure you'll be able to ask him whatever you want when he's back… now, if you don't mind, I should check your pincess, and see if everything is ok…" started the vampire, floating slightly towards the bed.

The door swung open, as Noxfero walked in. And a moment later, the wall beside the door exploded and collapsed to the floor, as an enormous devil dusted off his hair, stepping over the rubble.

"There is a door here!"

"Oh, come on, it's too small for me."

"You could have crouched." Snarled Noxfero, receiving a little ashamed smile from the other archdevil. He sighed, and turned towards the ponies: they looked slightly scared of the enormous creature that had just walked through the wall and reduced it to a pile of crumbled stones. Well, he had expected something like that. Daelus was the biggest of all the archdevils, and with his three meters of height, he was quite the sight.

"Girls, this is Daelus, a collegue of mine, and Archdevil of Sloth." He introduced, gesturing slightly with a hand towards the immense devil. He saw the mares tremble a little, at the word "archdevil". He also noted that Celestia, who was now apparently awake, was staring at him menacingly. "And he's probably the least evil creature you'll ever find in here." He quickly added.

Daelus stayed silent, examining the ponies, without moving. Then he suddenly raised a finger, pointing the polished claw at Twilight.

"She's the genius one." He said calmly, before pointing at Rainbow Dash. "She is the fast and cool one… the orange one is the honest one that never lets her friends down…" he continued, moving his finger. "She must be Fluttershy, the kind and sweet one… the marshmallowy one must be the fashonista that makes wonderful dresses…"

"He can read our minds! We had to get some tinfoil to put on our heads and protect our brains!" exclaimed Pinkie, cowering and storming under Celestia's bed.

"…And that one… I suppose she's Pinkie Pie." Finished Daelus, smiling. "Nox told me all about all of you."

The mares moved their gazes to the other devil. Even Pinkie popped her head and looked at him.

"What?" asked the devil, raising an eyebrow. And a moment later he was tackled over by Pinkie, who sprung out of the bed with no apparent method of propulsion, and takled him down.

"I knew the things you said when you were going away weren't true!" she screamed happily.

"Well, that was sure, darling." giggled Rarity, while Noxfero struggled to get free, to no avail. Daelus let out a small, deep laugh, before taking a step forwards, his enormous, spiked tail dragging on the floor.

"I think you might tell me why they are all here. With their queen as well." He stated calmly, looking at Celestia. A gurgle was the only response he got for almost five minutes, until Noxfero grabbed the crowbar that Jaco was holding up to him, and used it to dislodge the pink mare from his neck.

"She's a princess… but anyway…" he gasped, clearing his throat. "By the way Celestia, it's nice to see you, even if under these circumstances."

"Which are…?"

"Mephisto got his hands on my last portal, and kidnapped Celestia." Grunted Noxfero, sitting on an empty bed and starting to pat Pinkie's head, trying to calm her. Daelus frowned slightly, and looked at the alicorn again.

"Why would he do something like that, anyway? I mean, the kidnapping." Muttered Twilight, moving her eyes between the two devils. "I mean… he was trying to…"

"Probably just to gather power in some way." Commented Noxfero. "The princess is, as far as I know, the biggest source of energy in your world, right?" he asked. The alicorn nodded.

"I think this is true…" she muttered. "The elements are actually a stronger force than me, but spread out as they are… I can see why he didn't chase them."

"But why did he do that anyway?! You said that archdevils only have to…well, do their job, punishing souls and such…" noted Rarity, giving a quick glance at Daelus. "Why did he kidnap the princess?"

"Actually…" grunted the enormous devil, scratching his chin. "I think he was just trying to gather energy for his plans of conquest. I should have understood that."

"Conquest?" asked the alicorn, raising an eyebrow. That was worrying.

"Conquest of Hell. He wants the boss' throne. Everyone knows that. The boss just tolerates his behaviour." Explained the big devil. "Assuming your world is as pure as Nox described it…"

"It was quite pure." agreed the other devil.

"…Then I can see why he might try and take any source of energy he could." Concluded the big devil. "But now, you are afraid he may try to catch them back?"

"Of course I am!"

"We can defend ourselves, you know?!" snapped Rainbow, flapping her wings angrily. "We are not afraid of that red thing!"

"I am… a little…" murmured the other pegasus, hiding behind her mane. "He…he was able to hurt the princess really badly… he's dangerous…"

"He's not going to get you, if you stay in my domain." Snarled Noxfero, glaring at the mares. "I hope that now that the princess is here, you don't try anything stupid out of boredom." He growled, shooting a glance to the pink mare, who blushed a little.

"Now, the plan is, of course, keeping all of you in here. He may be rebellious, but he wont attack me directly. After all, he doesn't know that the one who rescued Celestia was Junior. You will all be safe staying in here."

"But that's not the thing that makes you worried… right?" asked the big devil, raising an eyebrow.

"Of course not. What makes me worry is the fact that he has a portal, that apparently he can use whenever he wants." Growled the other devil.

"Doing anything would indeed be useless, if that creature can strike whenever he wants in Equestria." Muttered Celestia, shifting a little under her sheets. "Can you do anything about that?"

"Can't you just kick his butt?" asked Rainbow, flapping her wings angrily. "Because if you don't, we'll do that!"

"We can't act in any aggressive way against each other." Muttered Daelus, moving slightly his tail. "It's one of our boss' rules."

"I'm recalling that Noxfero and that… creature were quite aggressive against each other." Noted Rarity, raising an eyebrow. Noxfero snickered, while scratching Pinkie behind an ear.

"Rules are made to be broken. But mostly, we acted like that because we were in a world where our boss doesn't have any power." He explained. "But here, we can't do anything. We have to follow our leader's laws."

"And he can't do anything about this?" asked the alicorn.

"Well… that's actually why Daelus is here. I have to ask for the support of the other archdevils and officially accuse Mephisto of disobeying the boss' orders. I'll probably end up punished as well for disobeying him, but at least it'll take care of Mephistopheles. And take care of the portal."

"But it's not fair that you are going to be punished too! You just helped us!" blurted Fluttershy, drawing the others attention. "It's not fair."

"You also want Belze's help, right?" asked Daelus, looking at Noxfero and holding back a little smirk at the little pegasus' outburst. The other archdevil nodded, standing up.

"I'll just wait 'till Celestia is better, and bring them to him. I'm sure she can help me convince him to be on my side."

"I'll do whatever is necessary to help you and Equestria." Stated the alicorn, before flinching a little in pain. Immediately, the vampire who had been floating away from the scene quickly rushed towards her, starting to check her eyes, while placing a hand on one of her forelegs.

"I think this is more than enough for today." She finally stated. "All of you, out of here." She ordered, starting to push the mares out, while glaring at the two archdevils. "She had a horrible encounter with liquid corruption and other garbage. She has to rest."

She didn't listen to the complaining from Twilight and the other mares, who were pushed out of the room mercilessly, while Noxfero held Pinkie in his arms and carried her out, as Daelus passed back through the hole in the wall.

"You have my support, Nox." Muttered the immense devil, while walking away from the medical bay. "I suppose there weren't any doubts about this."

"Of course not." Grinned the devil. The other devil nodded, before disappearing in a burst of sparks that startled the mares. "I think you got another ally."

"That's…nice…" murmured Fluttershy, looking at the empty spot where Daelus had been standing a second before.

"Nice?! Don't be silly, Fluttershy! We have to gather some tinfoil before he returns!" screamed Pinkie Pie, while looking around with concern.

"Oh boy… I see that my crown of being the most silly creature of the castle is being claimed by someone else." Grunted Jaco, popping out of Noxfero's pocket, frowning.

Oo-oO

Sorry, SORRY guys for the insanely long wait. I was kinda passinf a low ispirated period for this fic, but I'll try to restart writing chapter for this one too, on a more or less regular base.


	10. Lord of flies

"Well… you are better than I was expecting, honestly." stated the vampire, while looking inside Celestia's mouth, and examining the alicorn's throat. "I assumed I would find a lot more traces of corruption. Well, this is good then." She stated, satisfied. The alicorn let out a muffled sound, as the vampire finished her examination.

"So… how is she?" asked Noxfero, watching as Sasha floated away from Celestia, satisfied.

"Well… she's recuperating quite fast from the experience. We should thank Junior, apparently, since he started to purify her body right away. But this is still the quickest recovery I have ever seen. Less than two days, and she seems to be fine." Said the vampire shrugging, as the alicorn followed her with her eyes.

"She can travel?"

"Of course she can. Her magic is probably going to be a little off, though." Stated the vampire, shrugging again. The devil smiled a little, letting out a sigh of relief.

"Well, that's fantastic. I'll see when Belzebù will be able to meet us…" he muttered, before focusing on Celestia. "Princess, I'd be more comfortable if you'll stay in here a little longer, in case anything goes down suddenly. Also, you won't have to deal with Jaco, he probably has already forgotten the way here." he said with a little smile. Sasha raised an eyebrow at the deference her master was showing, but didn't say anything. She didn't want to be punished again.

"If you think this is for the best, I don't have any complaints." said the alicorn, slipping back under her covers, looking at the ceiling. " By the way Noxfero, thank you." She added, with a little smile. The devil raised an eyebrow. "You tried to save Equestria as soon as you knew there was danger, then you took care of the girls when they came to your world, and now you are doing all that is in your power to help us."

"What did you expect?" asked the devil, still with his surprised face. The alicorn's smile grew a little wider, but she dismissed him with a little chuckle and a wave of her hoof. The devil blinked, before shugging and crawling outside, muttering under his breath.

The alicorn smiled even more, letting her head sink into the soft pillow. The medical bay smelled slightly of dust and mold, the walls were blank and depressing, the lights on the ceiling was dim… but she felt safer than she had ever been lately.

-oOo-

"What are you two doing…?" asked Noxfero in disbelief, staying motionless in the doorframe of his room: Pinkie and Jaco were sitting on the black bed, folding some some tinfoil into the form of little hats, while Fluttershy and Rainbow Dash were trying as well, even if they seemed unable to reach the pink mare's skill. Twilight was reading a book, laying on a pillow (who would have thought?) and as soon as she heard the devil's voice, she jumped off the bed and trotted to him.

"Is the princess ok?" she immediately asked, catching the devil's attention, stopping in front of him.

"Fine as a mosquito in a blood bank." Was the rushed answer of the devil, still looking at his minion and the pink pony crafting the little hats. "What are you making those for?" he finally asked, since he wasn't able to come up with any good reason himself.

"Daelus called, said he managed to contact Belzebù and get an appointment for the both of you. So, we are making tinfoil helmets!" explained the little devil, with a silly smile. "So he won't be able to read our minds."

"Daelus can't read minds!" snapped the archdevil, exasperated. Pinkie and Jaco shared a glance, a little disappointed.

"Can we still do these?" asked Pinkie, raising up a perfectly shaped hat in her hooves and showing it to the devil. He sighed in resignation.

"Sure, why not. But you explain to Daelus why are you wearing them." He blurted out, before returning his attention at his minion. "Anyway, that's good news. Sasha told me that Celestia is well enough to travel so we can have her at our side."

"Do you really want to take her and the girls with you to Belzebu's castle?" asked the little devil, raising an eyebrow.

"We should meet him." noted Twilight, taking a few steps towards the devil. "If he's a friend of yours he might help us out, right? Noxfero can better explain the situation with our help, as well as the princess'."

"That's not the point…" muttered Jaco. "He's not… a pleasant guy." he began to say, before being grasped by a shadowy tentacle and dragged into one of Noxfero's raincoat pockets.

"Whatever. We need him to be on our side, and they can help oil the gears, so to speak." He grunted. "Call him back and tell him to come as soon as he can." He ordered. The little devil saluted, before sinking inside the pocket and searching for a phone.

"So… that Daelus guy is an Arch-thingy like you, uh?" asked Rainbow, raising her eyes, as the devil dropped on the bed and started to stroke Pinkie's mane. "He's quite different than you."

"He was nice." Murmured Fluttershy, with a little smile. "He wasn't scary like the red one that attacked the castle…" she murmured, her face frowning at the memory.

"Well, not only did you lie about the fact that you are the 'ultimate evil'…" teased Rarity, smirking, and raising a hoof to preempt the harsh answer that the devil was going to spit out. "Don't even try it, you are not going to convince any of us." The devil grumbled, but stayed silent. "As I was saying, you also lied about your collegues."

"I didn't lie!" snarled the devil. Pinkie nuzzled his side with a little smirk. "I'm serious… at least, I didn't lie too much. We are evil… following the human line of thoughts." he finished, his voice becoming a low mumble. "But about Daelus, you are right. He's the most pleasant of all of us. Probably because he was supposed to end up in Heaven, not here."

"Didn't you say that Heaven is for the good… souls… while this place is for the bad souls?" asked Twilight, raising an eyebrow, as she returned to lay on the bed, while from Noxfero's pocket continued the rustling of Jaco in his search for a phone.

"Yup. As I said, he was supposed to go up. But being the good soul that he is, he decided to follow his sister down here. He was supposed to become an Archangel, but the boss saw his potential, and hired him as the last archdevil. The archdevil of sloth."

"Sloth? Do ya mean laziness? Yer friend didn't seem all that lazy to me." Noted Applejack, raising an eyebrow from the pillow where she was sitting.

"It was just because that was the only available spot. He's the only archdevil that doesn't mirror his assigned sin. That's probably why his powers were also changed. From slime to lightning. Oh well, who am I to try to understand these things?" he concluded, shrugging.

"That's why you talked with him about us?" inquired the pink pony, her ears fluttering as the black nails of the devil scratched her skin. The devil nodded, emitting a low growl.

"Very well then dear, call soon!" chirped Jaco, popping out of the pocket, with a cellphone pressed upside down to his ear.

"Were you talking to Daelus?"

"Uh? Of course not! Just had a little chat with the Queen of England. Nice lady, as usual. I should call her a little more often, though. Maybe send her something for Christmas."

"I would facepalm, but I'm afraid of making a hole in my head." Growled Noxfero, snatching the phone from the little devil's grasp and starting to type a number.

"Well, I just wanted to hear a little bit from her, since I was there…" muttered the little devil. Noxfero sighed, shaking his head, as he waited for Daelus to answer.

"You girls, go get the princess." He muttered, shooting a glance at his minion. "So we can save some time. Do you remember the way?"

"Of course we do. Come on girls." Immediately ordered Twilight, straightening up and trotting at the door. "Let's go get the princess. Come on, let' move!" she urged the other mares, who exchanged a few glances before slowly following the mare out of the room, Applejack stopping a second beside the bed to permit to Pinkie to slide onto her back.

"Twilight, there is no rush." Tried to say Rarity, as soon as they entered into the corridor and the purple mare started to walk rapidly, quickly striding apart from the rest of the group. She stopped and breathed heavily as the others caught up to her.

"I know, I know… it's just that… I'm excited because the princess is here! She's safe. But she might also be angry with us. And especially with me for having dragged all of you here, and…"

"Sugarcube, she ain't angry." Reassured Applejack, patting Twilight on the back. "Ain't no point in getting all worked up about that. Just relax."

"Yeah! Have a cupcake!" cheered Pinkie from Applejack's back, extracting a cupcake covered in green frosting from her mane, giving it to Twilight. . She took it and started to munch on it, relaxing a little.

"She's going to be happy that everything is fine." Reassured Rainbow, lazily flapping her wings. "You'll see."

Twilight let out a little smile, before stopping in front of the dark door and grasping the handles with her magic, then pulling them open.

"You are probably right." She stated, looking at her friends, before actually looking into the room: Celestia was sitting on her bed, half covered by her sheet and was looking with polite curiosity at Junior, who was staring at her from the bed in front of her, his frowning eyes locked on the alicorn.

"Oh, hello girls." Stated the princess, turning her head and smiling. "How are you doing today?" she asked in a sweet tone. After she had woken up, the ponies hadn't had a real chance to talk with her, since Sasha had put her under observation, without actually allowing anyone to get near her. "What brings you here?" she asked sweetly. Twilight blinked, before rushing to her mentor's side, a bright smile across her muzzle.

"Good day princess!"

"Glad to see ya'll are doing fine, princess." Added Applejack, walking in behind her friend, quickly followed by all the other mares, eager to give their own greetings to their ruler. They didn't even notice as Junior raised himself into the air, sustained by black tentacles stretching out of his back, and crawled out of the room through a vent hidden behind a tile in the wall.

"I'm fine indeed, Applejack. The doctor working here is quite good, and my body was fast to recover from that… unpleasant experience." The alicorn stated, her smile not fading. "I'm a little sore and my magic isn't working properly, but I suppose I can't complain." She said, looking at her subjects.

"That's wonderful news, your highness…" murmured Fluttershy, smiling a little.

"Princess, Noxfero wants to take us to meet another of his archedvil collegues…" started Twilight, trying to mantain a neutral tone. "If you feel ok, I think it's a good idea too…"

"But of course." immediately stated the princess. "And I'm assuming he wants me to go with him?" she asked, and received a nod in response. "Very well, then. If that's what is best, I think I should not leave him waiting for me." She commented, trying to slide out of the bed. She placed an unstable hoof on the ground, before being immediately helped by Rainbow Dash and Twilight, both running to the alicorn's side, helping her to get to the ground.

"Thank you girls, my muscles still hurt a little." She said with a little smile, starting to walk slowly towards the door, the two mares still at either side to help her avoid wobbling too much. "How are you doing, Pinkie Pie?" she asked, moving her eyes to the mare laying motionless on Applejack's back.

"Better, thank you princess!" she cheered, wiggling her bandaged hooves under Celestia's face. "I hope to be ok soon, so Noxfero doesn't have to carry me around!"

"I'm quite sure he's not disliking that." whispered Rarity to the yellow pegasuswho let out a little chuckle.

"Well, AH will appreciate that for sure… Ah say it again Pinkie, you are a little heavy…" panted Applejack, continuing to walk beside the others down the corridor while wiping off a few drops of sweat from her forehead.

As the group chuckled, they continued to walk through the dark corridors of the castle. Celestia could see Noxfero's touch in their surroundings. The black walls, purple-glass windows, shadows crawling in every corner. A rolling Jaco on the floor with his head engulfed in flames…

"Still here girls? Come on, Noxy is waiting for you outside." he chirped, standing up and hopping happily towards them. "Hi Celly!" he added, waving a tiny hand at the alicorn. "Glad to see you back on your hooves."

"Thank you Jaco." Smiled the princess, as the little demon turned and started to guide them, his head burning like a torch, lighting up their way.

-oOo-

"…I'm just saying that you could just tell her." spoke Daelus, as the mares finally left from the main door of the castle: an enormous obsidian door with numerous carvings of skulls, devils, and other not really pleasant things.

"Like that? Don't even…" started Noxfero, before noticing the mares and shutting up, walking towards them. "Princess, if you had problems with walking you could just ask for Sasha's help."

"I'm fine, Noxfero." Was the calm answer of the alicorn. "Just a little dizzy at the beginning."

"Man, she reminds me a lot of the boss." Snickered Daelus, crossing his arms. "Badass, powerful, and with just that aura of superiority that none of us can hope to obtain."

"At least she doesn't punish those who disappoint her with baths in the boiling oil." muttered Noxfero, before shrugging and gesturing at them. "The transport is coming, so don't stay on the path."

"Transport?" asked Twilight, looking around: this being her first time outside the castle, she had been expecting a different environment. Instead, she was faced with a fairly large plain of gray dust, in front of a tall and long series of spiky mountains. There was no place for a road where a transport could pass.

"Just asking, what kind of transport it is? There ain't no road here that I can see." Asked Applejack, giving voice to the unicorn's thoughts.

"Flying transports, of course. Usually we would just fly directly to Belzebù's palace, but since only two of you are able to fly at the moment, we have to call for some of Belze's servants." Explained Noxfero, making a vague gesture at the reddish sky, where a couple of black clouds were rolling lazily past. "We just have to wait here for a little while. Sadly, they aren't too fast."

The devil closed his mouth, looking at the sky, waiting for their transports to enter into his field of view. Applejack dropped Pinkie to the ground with a grunt, before sitting and resting on the dusty earth. Celestia sat on the ground as well, looking at the sky, filling her lungs with the fresh air.

"Awkward silence…" whispered audibly Jaco, popping out from one of Noxfero's pockets, patting the devil's side.

"The alternative would be me and Daelus speaking about work, and we are avoiding doing that since it'll be quite a bit more awkward." Snarled the devil, shaking his head. Daelus let out a little chuckle, before taking a step towards the mares.

"I'm not too sure what to speak about with a group of ponies. I'm not the one that went and passed a lot of months in their apparently perfect world." He snickered, his big tail slamming on the ground.

"You may talk about this world then. We are just foreigners here. You shall be our guide." Said calmly Celestia, turning her eyes to the enormous devil. "Noxfero was quite vague when speaking about this place… and the 'mortal world' connected to this one."

"Princess, we would need an awful lot of time to describe even a small part of Hell." Snickered Daelus, as his ears twitched, hearing a loud buzzing sound, that was quickly approaching. He raised his eyes, imitated by the others: an enormous cockroach was rapidly approaching, heading towards the ground, the enormous and transparent wings emitting the loudest buzzing the mares had ever heard.

"Oh dear!" was Rarity's scream, before she tried to run back inside the castle, just to be stopped by a shadow hand that grasped her tail, stopping her a few steps away from the door.

"That's our transport." Snickered Daelus, as the enormous bug finally landed a few meters from them, raising a cloud of gray dust in the air. Now the mares could see some sort of chariot-like cabin tied up on the middle section of the bug, while a maggot-like creature was seated on the head of the bug.

The cockroach closed its wings under its green carapace, emitting a screeching sound with its jaws, which Celestia was sure could tear an alicorn apart with no effort. The maggot-like creature moved a white and tiny appendex at the two archdevils, pointing at the cabin.

"Here is our ride." Snickered Noxfero, clearly enjoying the ruckus Rarity was causing trying to free herself from his tentacles of darkness and run away from the immense bug, without results. "Dash, Shy, hop on, we are coming." He ordered. The two pegasi nodded and started to fly up towards the cabin, the door opening on its own.

"Come on now, Rarity, stop struggling…" he muttered, trying to grasp the flailing unicorn, receiving a couple of kicks as he tried to do so. Daelus lowered slightly towards Celestia, ignoring Twilight cringing.

"May I, your highness?" he asked calmly, pointing at the cabin with his tail. The princess nodded.

"Yes please. I'm afraid my wings aren't up to the task, and it seems as if Noxfero has is hands full, at the moment." She chuckled, as Rarity freed herself and tried to make another dash towards the door of the enormous black castle, as Noxfero leaped in the air, trying to pounce on her, while Applejack and Pinkie were rolling on the ground, almost choking with laughter. Daelus lowered his hands, and gently grabbed the alicorn, as if he was picking up a cat, and raised her at his chest, while from his back a couple of transparent wings opened.

While the Archdevil of Sloth raised into the air and moved towards the cabin, Noxfero had managed to tie down a screaming Rarity and held her under one arm, with Pinkie under his other arm.

"You can't drag me towards such a creature! You can't!" was screaming the candid mare, but Noxfero, after a couple of random kicks between his legs, had decided to stop paying attention to the mare's complaints. Pinkie on the other hand was still laughing, her eyes tearing up from her laughter.

"Glad you are having fun, Pinkie." He snarled, opening his black wings and starting to flap them, raising into the air and heading towards the cabin, just as the other archdevil returned down to pick up Applejack and Twilight. "Because I'm not!"

"I'm having fun too!" chirped Jaco. "By the way, great hits Rarity. Maybe next time you should aim a little better…"

The archdevil growled, entering into the cabin, and placed the two mares on two soft and padded armchairs. Rarity immediately stopped to whine as soon as she noted the inside: a set of scarlet, furry armchairs were placed all along the wooden walls, except for what had all the intentions to be a minibar. She stayed still as the shadowy binds disappeared, while looking in amazement around her.

Noxfero had the clear impression that it wasn't a good idea to tell her that the coating of the armchairs was made out of the remains of cockroach eggs.

Daelus crawled through the small entrance and placed the last mares inside, before turning towards the maggot-like creature and waving a hand. He pushed himself inside, keeping his head low to not poke the ceiling with his horns, and closed the door right behind him, as the cockroach opened his carapace and started to move its wings again. At least the inside of the cabin was padded and they didn't have the obnoxious sound piercing their ears.

The bug raised through the air, with just a little bump in the cabin, moving swiftly over the mountains around the black castle, and starting to rapidly fly over a vast black, rocky plain, filled with holes and canyons of erupting flames.

"This is still my realm. But if I have to be honest, the layout was done by the archdevil before me. I was just too lazy to remodel it." Said in an apologetic tone Noxfero, looking down one of the windows of the cabin. The mares looked down, amazed by the peculiar scenery. "Every realm is modeled on the archdevil's desires and inclinations. I'm quite sure my predecessor was quite the sadistic type." He added, spotting a canyon filled with impaled, burning souls.

"You are a sadistic type too." Noted Jaco, raising an eyebrow.

"Just to who deserves it." Shrugged the devil. "Speaking of which…"

Noxfero stood up, grasping the little devil's neck with a hand. He walked towards the cabin door, opened it, and tossed the little devil outside. Then he calmly closed the door, and returned to his place.

"That is so much better." He sighed, relaxing. Twilight and Applejack rolled their eyes, while Celestia raised an eyebrow and Daelus snickered. "Anyway, as you can see now, we are already on the Styx." He added, regaining his role of 'guide', pointing down to a large stream of reddish water that abruptly interrupted the black plain of rocks. "It's the only river down here, and also marks the boundaries between our territories. We are entering Belzebù's level now." He explained.

Under the cockroach now there was a vast and dark forest, as far as the mares' eyes could see: tall and sick-looking willows and mangroves were compacted against each other, forming an almost uniform expanse of leaves.

"It's a swamp down there?" asked Fluttershy, examining the trees. Noxfero nodded, shrugging.

"The swamps of gluttony, where the souls are condemned to crawl around, hiding from the predators, almost constantly tortured by swarms of flies and mosquitos, still able to feel the hunger but unable to eat anything of the food the plants produce, since they are poisonous and revolting." Commented Daelus, a slight frown on his face. "An effective punishment for the gluttonous, I suppose."

"That's horrible!" exclaimed Rarity, looking outside. "Why is gluttony such a bad thing? I mean, ok, it might ruin your figure, but isn't that punishment enough?!" she asked, looking at the two archdevils. They shared a glance.

"We don't have the slightest idea." finally stated Noxfero, shrugging.

"We are not the ones making the rules." Added Daelus. "There is surely a good reason, but that's not the sin assigned to us, so we didn't really make any research on that."

"You can ask Belzebù, if you wanted." Shrugged Noxfero, as the cockroach suddenly started to lower, heading towards a vast clearing, in front of a tall and large building, apparently made out of mud, not nearly as elaborate as Noxfero's palace. "Now, hold on…" he muttered, as the bug landed with a splash and a series of gurgling sounds inside the muddy marsh in front of the immense building. The bug emitted a series of screeches, before finally settling, closing its wings.

With a little screech, the door of the cabin opened, as the maggot creature turned and waved its little pale arms, gesturing to his passengers to get out. Daelus nodded and passed again through the doorframe with a little bit of effort, before offering his arm to Celestia, who accepted it with a little smile, permitting the archdevil to grab her again and glide down towards the swampy ground. Rainbow and Fluttershy followed him, looking around, impressed by the dimension of the trees.

Rarity looked down at the muddy ground below them, before turning towards Noxfero, who was grasping Pinkie and holding her to his chest.

"Can you hold me too?" she squeaked, getting the devil's attention. "I don't want to have any of that nasty mud on my coat." She pleaded, her lower lip trembling a little. Noxfero let out a worn out sigh.

-oOo-

Daelus and Noxfero walked towards the large, muddy, and covered in slimy water stairs of the palace, the bigger devil holding Celestia, while the second one was holding Pinkie in his arms, while Rarity was comfortably placed on his head, and meanwhile the other mares were falling a little behind them.

A couple of worms beside the dirty door raised their tails in salutes, before grasping the handles of the gate and opening it, slipping on the mud.

"A peculiar set of creatures…" noted Celestia, as the little group rushed into the corridor of the palace, lit up by numerous braziers that were burning with strange blue flames. The walls were apparently made out of dried up mud and sticks, giving the sensation that it could crumble any second. The two archdevils ignored the surrounding, moving swiftly over the muddy floor, also ignoring the large number of bugs and vermin crawling out from cracks in the walls to stare silently at the guests of the palace.

"I'm sure you'll see soon enough why, princess." Said softly Daelus, taking a turn and walking down another corridor, where a series of paintings that were half covered in dirt were stuck into the mud.

"He sure should have been chosen as the archdevil of dirt for sure." noted Rarity, looking with disgust to a big reddish spider crawling on the ceiling, following them. She didn't even notice the carved door until the two archdevils stopped: this door was metallic, half rusted, and covered in clear carvings representing piles and piles of food.

"Do you think he's eating?" asked Daelus, raising an eyebrow.

"Mh… we are talking about the archdevil of Gluttony… what do you think?" snarled Noxfero, grasping the door's handles. "Girls, plug your nose." He warned, before pushing the door open.

In front of them there was an immense, round room, brightly lit up by a series of crackling torches, stuck in the walls, lighting up the enormous round table in the center of the room, where a mountain of food was piled up messily. But it wasn't common food: putrescent carcasses of dead animals were mixed with festering fruits and vegetables, all mixed in a multicolored pile of decay. A stream of rotting liquid was leaking down the table, producing a fairly large puddle.

Rarity plugged her mouth, as her stomach started to twitch. The other mares weren't any better, since Twilight pressed her hooves to her mouth as well, Applejack put her hat in front of her muzzle, in an attempt to hide from the miasma coming from the rotten food. Fluttershy was becoming green, and Rainbow was trying to cover her nose. Celestia was the only one that seemed to be unaffected, even if her nose was wrinkling from the strong hit.

Swarms of flies were buzzing all around the pile, feasting on it, as well as a large number of pale maggots swarming all around the pile. And on the top of it, sitting on a dead cow's ribcage, ripping up a chunk of festering meat, there was Belzebù.

Celestia first thought was that it was a big fly. But after a second, she could see the different structure, somehow similar to Noxfero and Daelus'. The body was squat and round, of a dark ocher color, while the round head was covered in dirty tufts of fur. The big eyes were like a pony's, but instead of a normal pupil and iris, they had a pupil sectioned like the eye of a fly. The legs and the arms were thin and covered in black fur. The mouth was just a long proboscis, almost as long as his body, ending with a toothy orifice, that he used to rip the meat from the bones, while a couple of translucent wings flapped on his back. All in all he was quite small, no taller than a common pony. Hard to believe that he could be…

"Oi Belze!" shouted Noxfero. The fly-like creature raised his eyes and spotted them. He waved a tiny hand and started to fly lazily towards them, gulping down the few traces of rotten meat stuck under his little claws.

"Daelus! Noxfero! Nice to see you two guys!" he exclaimed, as soon as he reached them, in quite a normal voice. Celestia was expecting some sort of squeaky or silly voice. "You never come visit me!"

"I wonder why…" snorted Noxfero, eyeing the pile fo rotten stuff.

"You want something to eat? I have already finished the manure muffin, but you can…" started Belzebù, but was cut of by a wheeze: Rarity slid rapidly off Noxfero's head, and ran towards the wall, starting to barf on the way, before stopping and vomiting on the dirty floor, trying to hide herself from the other's sight.

"Maybe we should get out of here?" asked Daelus in a pleading tone. "We can't discuss with our subject vomiting all around."

"Vomiting? I thought it was offering me the dessert." Stated the fly, raising an eyebrow. Another set of retches followed this statement.

-oOo-

"Are… are you feeling better?" asked carefully Fluttershy, looking at the candid mare that was resting on the sofa. Belzebù had agreed to move to another side of the castle, away from the awful sight and smell. At least, this room was a little cleaner, and the mares were able to sit on a sofa without having to deal with mud, sewage or other stuff.

"I won't eat for the next week." Was the ranted answer.

"Uh, can I have your desserts then?" asked Pinkie, turning towards Rarity, a hopeful shimmer in her eyes, totally ignoring the three archdevil's discussion, with Noxfero explaining the general details to the little archdevil.

"So… you disobeyed the boss?" asked the fly creature, looking at the archdevil.

"He tried to help his friends." Stated Celestia, taking Noxfero's defence. "Sometimes the heart acts on its own."

"Woah ma'am, I'm not judging, that's not my job. And orders are made to be broken. It was because we disobeyed an order that me and the boss are here doing this job in the first place." immediately stated the fly, putting his little hands in front of him. "I was just surprised he had the guts."

"What Mephisto could have done to them is nothing compared to what the boss might do to me." Snarled Noxfero, shooting a glance at the six mares relaxing on the sofa. "But if it wasn't for my intervention, they were going to be dead, and the princess would have ended up being used as a weapon."

"Ah yes, and that's the accusation you want to move against Mephisto, right?"

"Right. What the princess described to me was quite similar to the extracting process to remove holy powers from angels. He was trying to suck her powers out, to use them against the boss."

"Are you sure about that?"

"Come on, this is Mephisto the one we are talking about." Snarled Noxfero, raising an eyebrow.

"I guess you are right." Grunted the fly, before moving his proboscis towards the alicorn, and emitting sounds similar to sniffs. "…Well, she's a beacon of holy power all right."

"By holy power you mean…?" asked Celestia, raising slightly an eyebrow. She wasn't quite sure what that word was supposed to mean. At least, in that contex. She knew what 'holy' meant, of course, but she never saw herself like something divine and holy. Even if maybe some pony did…

"Lighty." Daelus stated, as a response.

"Pure." Added Belzebù.

"The kind of power that can kick our ass into the next dimension. That's why Mephisto wants it. Your power is enough to challenge our boss. If you hadn't been caught off guard, I'm sure you could have been able to kick Mephisto's ass quite happily." He explained.

"Actually, no." Retorted Belzebù, shaking his head. "As ex angel… and not just an angel but THE angel, the first one, the most perfect and pure, the boss is totally immune to holy powers. And apparently, everyone knows that apart from you and Mephistophele."

"He's good at not getting things!" called Rainbow from the couch, receiving a glare from Noxfero.

"So, all those shenanigans were useless?" asked Daelus, raising an eyebrow, before shrugging. "That doesn't change what Mephisto did. He attacked innocent creatures in a dimension out of our territory."

"Yup. You'll have my help on that. they seem to be creatures allright." Nodded Belzebù, looking first at Celestia, then at the ponies on the couch.

"Yep. Even if their tolerance to disgusting things is quite low." Noted Noxfero. "So please, try to not gross out them too much."

"I get it, I get it."snorted the fly, before turning, opening a drawer in the wall and taking out a series of caramel-covered dead spiders. "Anyone want a treat?"

Oo-oO

Well, I assume this story (like all my others) are in a universe set after s2, without considering s3. Anyway, here's Belzebù, lord of flies and archdevil of Gluttony for ya all.

So, what or who do you want to see next? Lilith? Mammon? Or just worck with what I have for now? Feel free to let me know in a review.


End file.
